THE  SONG?&1 


GEORGE 
CABOT 
LODGE 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


THE  SONG  OF  THE   WAVE 


AND  OTHER  POEMS 


THE    SONG   OF  THE    WAVE 


AND  OTHER  POEMS 


BY 

GEORGE  CABOT  LODGE 


'Mais  nous,  nous,  consumts  efune  impossible  envie, 
En  proie  au  tnal  de  croire  et  d' aimer  sans  retour, 

Rlpondez,  jours  nouveaux  nous  rendrez-vous  la  -vie? 
Dites,  d  jours  anciens,  nous  rendrez-vous  I' amour?  " 

—LECONTE  DE  LISLE 


NEW  YORK 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 
1898 


COPYRIGHT,  1898,  BY 
CHARLES   SCRIBNER'S   SONS 


TROW  DIRECTORY 

PRINTING  AND  BOOKBINDING  COMPANY 
NEW  YORK 


TO  THE   POET 

GIACOMO   LEOPARDI 


906659 


CONTENTS 

PACK 

EXORDIUM i 

A  FIRST  WORD     ........  2 

THE  OCEAN  SINGS        .                      ....  4 

THE  SONG  OF  THE  WAVE 7 

THE  EAST  WIND 11 

THE  NORSEMEN 13 

"WAS  HAT  MAN  DIR,  DU  ARMES  KIND,  GETHAN "    .  17 
THE  SONG  OF  THE  SWORD 

PRELUDE 18 

INVOCATION 21 

THE  SONG .22 

AFTER- WORD 25 

BALLAD 30 

DAWN 33 


CONTENTS 

PACK 

SUNSET 35 

THE  GATES  OF  LIFE 36 

MOTHERS  OF  MEN 44 

LOVE  IN  AGE 47 

A  MEMORY 51 

AGE        .  .53 

EVENING 56 

To  A  WOMAN •        •  57 

THE  END 59 

N£ANT 62 

YOUTH 64 

SERENADE 65 

SONG 66 

SONG ,68 

"  OR  POSERAI  PER  SEMPRE, 

STANCO  MIO  COR" 70 

THEY 72 

TO  A  BUST  OF  THE  MATER  DOLOROSA  75 


CONTENTS 

FACE 

To  PSYCHE 77 

THE  WILL 80 

TUCKANUCK 

1.  SONNET 83 

2.  SONNET 84 

3.  STANZAS      ........      85 

4.  WIND  OF  TWILIGHT  ....  -87 

PASTORAL 88 

FALL      ...  ...  .90 

SONNETS 

I.  To  SILENCE 95 

II.  To  THE  EARTH 96 

III.  ESSEX.— i 97 

IV.  ESSEX.— 2 98 

V.  SONNET 99 

VI.    FOG  AT  SEA .100 

VII.    NIRVANA. — i  101 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

VIII.    NIRVANA.—  2     .......    I02 


IX.  PASSING  DAYS  .......  I03 

X.  ON  AN  AEOLIAN  HARP     .....  I04 

XI.  THE  SPHINX      .       .        .        .               .       .105 

XII.  SONNET      ........  I06 

XIII.  To  THE  MEMORY  OF  W.  H.  P.  .       .  107 

XIV.  INSOMNIA  ........  I08 

XV.  SONNET      ........  I09 

XVI.  SONNET      ........  IIO 

XVII.  THE  GATE  OF  DREAMS   .....  m 

XVIII.  To  GIACOMO  LEOPARDI  .....  112 

XIX.  To  J.  T.  S.  —  (AFTER  READING  "AMIS  ET 

AMILE")      ......  II3 

XX.  To  THE  CHILDREN  OF  THE  MUSE         .       .114 

XXI.  L'ENFANT  DU  SlECLE         .....  115 

XXII.  AUX   MODERNES.—  I             .....  Il6 

XXIII.  Aux  MODERNES.—  2         .....  117 

XXIV.  SONNET      .  n8 


CONTENTS 

PACE 

XXV.    To  A  STATUE    .       .       .       ...       .119 

XXVI.  A  DREAM     .                       .                      .120 

XXVII.  "ELI!   ELI!    LAMA  SABACTHANI  ! "       .    121 

XXVIII.    DANTE .122 

XXIX.  LOVE.— i      ....                       .     123 

XXX.    LOVE. — 2 124 

XXXI.    SONNET       .  125 

XXXII.    SONNET 126 

XXXIII.  SONNET 127 

XXXIV.  SONNET       .  128 

XXXV.    SONNET 129 

XXXVI.  SONNET  WITHOUT  RHYMES  .  .  .130 

XXXVII.  Too  SOON  .  131 

XXXVIII.  Too  LATE 132 

XXXIX.  THE  NIGHT-WIND 133 

XL.  SONNET 134 


A  LAST  WORD 135 


EXORDIUM 

SPEAK  !  said  my  soul,  be  stern  and  adequate ; 
The  sunset  falls  from  Heaven,  the  year  is  late, 
Love  waits  with  fallen  tresses  at  thy  gate 

And  mourns  for  perished  days. 
Speak  !  in  the  rigor  of  thy  fate  and  mine, 
Ere  these  scant,  dying  days,  bright-lipped  with  wine, 
All  one  by  one  depart,  resigned,  divine, 

Through  desert,  autumn  ways. 

« 

Speak  !  thou  art  lonely  in  thy  chilly  mind, 
With  all  this  desperate  solitude  of  wind, 
The  solitude  of  tears  that  make  thee  blind, 

Of  wild  and  causeless  tears. 

Speak  !  thou  hast  need  of  me,  heart,  hand  and  head, 
Speak,  if  it  be  an  echo  of  thy  dread, 
A  dirge  of  hope,  of  young  illusions  dead — 

Perchance  God  hears ! 


A   FIRST  WORD 

"  COME,"  said  the  Ocean,  "  I  have  songs  to  sing, 
And  need  thine  utterance,  as  Apollo's  self 
Needed  his  lyre  to  perfume  the  world 
With  chants  of  soul  and  body,  both  divine." 

"  Come,"  said  the  Ocean,  "  if  thy  soul  is  fit 
To  bear  my  mastery,  thy  words  shall  flow 
Simple  and  adequate  as  human  tears, 
And  all  thy  discord  fall  in  great  accords." 

"  Come,"  said  the  Ocean :  and  I  answered :   "  Lord 
Of  song  and  silence,  I  have  heard  thy  voice, 
And  loved  as  may  a  man  the  heart  divine; 
But  still  my  soul  is  tremulous  and  mute." 


A  FIRST  WORD 

"  Come,"  said  the  Ocean,  "Oh,  my  tired  child. 
My  lips  are  delicate  with  whisper,  sad 
With  endless  yesterdays,  and  marvellous 
With  myriad  legends  since  the  birth  of  Time. ' ' 

"  Come,"  said  the  Ocean,  soft;  and  I,  "Beloved, 
Alone  upon  thy  breast  I  heard  and  knew 
And  marvelled  and  was  dumb. ' '     And  then  the  sea : 
"Speak!"     And  I  said,    "By  what?"   and  She,   "By 
Love." 


THE   OCEAN   SINGS 

I  HAVE  glorified  God  in  my  descant, 
I  have  praised  him  in  tempest  and  calm, 

I  have  mirrored  his  proper  refulgence 
As  I  slept  in  the  infinite  palm. 

,     V 

I  have  sung  till  the  night  was  ecstatic, 
Till  my  lyrics  woke  flame  in  the  moon, 

I  have  sung  to  the  morning's  desire 
And  sheathed  in  the  metal  of  noon. 

When  my  forehead  was  furrowed  with  silver, 
When  my  bosom  swelled  softly  as  sleep, 

When  I  wounded  the  sands  in  my  passion, 
When  I  lisped  through  the  sea-weed  at  neap, 


THE  OCEAN  SINGS 

Through  the  piteous  wail  of  the  siren, 

Through  the  bell-buoy's  comfortless  moan, 

Through  the  silence  that  stirs  to  a  sea-bird 
That  moves  in  my  vastness  alone, 

I  have  sung;    through  the  ranges  of  music 
I  have  frightened  and  comforted  man, 

I  have  praised  the  strong  life  that  compels  me 
As  what  voice  in  the  universe  can. 

I  have  sung  the  great  lyric  of  sorrow, 
The  splendour  of  life  and  the  pain, 

I  have  pitied  the  spirit's  endeavour, 
The  doubt  and  despair  in  the  brain. 

My  passion  is  never  senescent, 

My  sorrow  is  balm  to  the  soul, 
My  voice  is  divine  with  remembrance, 

With  peace  and  commiserate  dole. 


THE   OCEAN   SINGS 

I  have  lavished  my  largess  of  comfort, 
Taken  earth  in  mine  arms  like  a  child, 

Taught  the  children  of  life  of  its  splendour, 
Brought  their  eyes  to  the  light  unbeguiled. 

I  have  laboured  and  none  shall  reward  me, 
I  have  lavished  and  none  shall  repay, 

If  the  earth  that  I  serve  be  ungrateful 
My  bounty  shall  never  decay. 

Could  the  stars  be  repaid  for  their  brilliance, 
They  would  fall  through  precipitous  air 

Day  and  night  from  the  summit  of  heaven, 
Leave  the  universe  blackened  and  bare. 

Take  my  beauty — God's  image  is  mirrored, 

Take  my  pity  for  Fate's  sure  control, 
Take  my  song,  it  is  Life's  evanescence, 

Take  my  silence,  the  strength  of  the  Soul ! 
6 


THE    SONG    OF    THE    WAVE 

I 

This  is  the  song  of  the  wave !     The  mighty  one ! 
Child  of  the  soul  of  silence,  beating  the  air  to  sound  : 
White  as  a  live  terror,  as  a  drawn  sword, 
This  is  the  wave. 

II 

This  is  the  song  of  the  wave,  the  white-maned  steed  of  the 

Tempest 

Whose  veins  are  swollen  with  life, 
In  whose  flanks  abide  the  four  winds. 
This  is  the  wave. 

Ill 

This  is  the  song  of  the  wave  !     The  dawn  leaped  out  of  the 
sea 

And  the  waters  lay  smooth  as  a  silver  shield, 

7 


THE   SONG   OF   THE   WAVE 

And  the  sun-rays  smote  on  the  waters  like  a  golden  sword. 
Then  a  wind  blew  out  of  the  morning 
And  the  waters  rustled 
And  the  wave  was  born! 


IV 

This  is  the  song  of  the  wave  !     The  wind  blew  out  of  the 

V  / 

noon, 

And  the  white  sea-birds  like  driven  foam 
Winged  in  from  the  ocean  that  lay  beyond  the  sky 
And  the  face  of  the  waters  was  .barred  with  white, 
For  the  wave  had  many  brothers, 
And  the  wave  was  strong  ! 

V 

This  is  the  song  of  the  wave  !     The  wind  blew  out  of  the 

sunset 

R\i      ^ 

And  the  west  was  lurid  as  Hell. 

The  black  clouds  closed  like  a  tomb,  for  the  sun  was  dead. 


THE   SONG  OF  THE  WAVE 

Then  the  wind  smote  full  as  the  breath  of  God, 

And  the  wave  called  to  its  brothers, 
"This  is  the  crest  of  life  1" 


VI 

This  is  the  song  of  the  wave,  that  rises  to  fall, 
Rises  a  sheer  green  wall  like  a  barrier  of  glass 
That  has  caught  the  soul  of  the  moonlight, 
Caught  and  prisoned  the  moon-beams ; 

Its  edge  is  frittered  to  foam. 
This  is  the  wave  ! 


VII 

This  is  the  song  of  the  wave,  of  the  wave  that  falls — 
Wild  as  a  burst  of  day-gold  blown  through  the  colours  of 

morning 
It  shivers  to  infinite  atoms  up  the  rumbling  steep  of  sand. 

This  is  the  wave. 
9 


THE   SONG   OF   THE   WAVE 

VIII 

This  is  the  song  of  the  wave,  that  died  in  the  fulness  of 

life. 
The  prodigal  this,  that  lavished  its  largess  of  strength 

In  the  lust  of  attainment. 
Aiming  at  things  for  Heaven  too  high, 
Sure  in  the  pride  of  life,  in  the  richness  of  strength. 
So  tried  it  the  impossible  height,  till  the  end  was  found  : 
Where  ends  the  soul  that  yearns  for  the  fillet  of  morning 

stars, 

The  soul  in  the  toils  of  the  journeying  worlds, 
Whose  eye  is  filled  with  the  Image  of  God, 

And  the  end  is  Death  ! 


THE  EAST  WIND 

It  came ! 

Breaking  across  the  giant  gates  of  gold 

It  cleaved  the  veils  of  morning  fold  on  fold, 

A  fluent  sword  aslant  the  early  flame. 

The  sea 

Shivered,  as  waking  from  impassioned  sleep 
A  naked  girl  might  feel  her  senses  creep 
Beneath  the  winter  of  reality. 


The  dawn 

Fell  haggard  and  dishevelled  from  the  skies, 
The  shoreless  ocean  filled  with  whispered  cries 

And  through  the  smothered  twilight  reared  its  spawn, 
ii 


THE   EAST  WIND 

And  now 

A  splash  of  chilly  wind  forsook  the  air 
And  caught  the  ocean  by  its  tangled  hair, 
Bent  it,  and  bit  the  stigma  in  its  brow. 

Alone 

The  wind  of  ruin  walked  from  sky  to  sky — 

As  when  Sertorius  put  forth  to  die, 

It  swayed  the  void  beyond  the  gates  of  stone. 

And  then 

It  grew  almighty  and  the  ocean  roared  ; 

The  living  slime  wherewith  the  world  is  floored 

Hearkened,  as  in  their  ships  despairing  men. 

To  me 

The  whisper  came,  the  voice  and  then  the  call 
Of  wanton  power,  and  then,  o'erwhelming  all, 
The  passion  of  mine  own  infinity. 


THE  NORSEMEN 

THESE  are  the  men  ! 
The  North  has  given  them  name, 
The  children  of  God  who  dare, 
From  the  field  and  the  growing  tree, 
Come  down  through  the  crystalline  air 
Where  the  sky  is  a  fleece  of  flame, 
And  the  breaker's  crest  is  as  hair 
Blown  back  from  the  brows  of  the  sea ; 
These  are  the  men  ! 

These  are  the  men  ! 
Where  midnight  abides  in  the  land, 
Where  the  sun  walks  round  the  earth, 
Where  the  fields  of  God  are  benumbed, 

There  the  shadow  did  give  them  birth, 
13 


THE   NORSEMEN 

Where  the  waves  are  tawny  with  sand 
And  the  miserly  ground  breeds  dearth 
And  the  harps  of  the  air  are  thrummed, 
These  are  the  men  ! 

These  are  the  men  ! 

Oh  Merciful  what  for  them  ? 

For  thy  children  with  frozen  lips? 

Then  the  Lord  spake,  "  I  am  the  Life; 

Go  down  to  the  sea  in  ships 

Beloved  and  dwell  in  the  hem 

Of  my  robe  though  the  tempest  rips 

Like  a  sword,  for  I  give  ye  Strife  !  " 

These  are  the  men  ! 

These  are  the  men  ! 
For  they  stand  in  the  dawn  of  things 
Full-armed  from  the  ocean's  womb; 
With  their  dower  of  wild  great  joy 

In  the  pouring  sun,  in  the  boom 
14 


THE   NORSEMEN 

Of  the  wave  as  the  storm-flail  sings, 
Till  the  waters  pulse  and  ploy 
And  gape  like  a  snow-fringed  tomb ; 
These  are  the  men  ! 

These  are  the  men  ! 
In  the  strength  of  the  primal  song 
As  the  increate  world  turned  white 
They  descended  and  dwelt  with  the  sea, 
Like  a  flower  dawn  bloomed  on  the  night, 
And  they  knew  that  their  lives  were  strong, 
That  life  was  and  should  ever  be — 
Then  the  sun  ! — and  a  pulse  of  light — 
These  are  the  men  ! 

These  are  the  men  ! 

In  their  youth  without  memory 

They  were  glad,  for  they  might  not  see 

The  lies  that  the  world  has  wrought 

On  this  parchment  of  God.     The  tree 
15 


THE   NORSEMEN 

Yielded  them  ships  and  the  sky 
Flamed  as  the  waters  fought ; 
But  they  knew  that  death  was  a  lie, 
That  the  life  of  man  was  as  nought, 
And  they  dwelt  in  the  truth  of  the  sea 
These  are  the  men  ! 


16 


"WAS   HAT  MAN  DIR,  DU   ARMES  KIND, 
GETHAN  ? " 

WEEP  nevermore  again ! 

The  wind's  wild  footstep  thrills  the  leaves  with  pain ; 

Then  desert  silence,  then  the  scattered  cries 

Of  frail-voiced  children,  then  within  thy  heart 

A  sense  of  falling  leaves  through  gray  linked  rain, 

Of  perished  youth  with  grave  prophetic  eyes 

And  strange  scant  visions  of  a  hopeless  past ; 

A  sense  of  life  no  older  than  thou  art, 

And  in  thy  soul,  of  bright  tears  falling  fast — 

Hush !  tired  child,  weep  nevermore  again. 


THE  SONG  OF  THE  SWORD 

PRELUDE 

IN  the  ineffable  days  when  from  the  summits  of  morning, 
Through  the  extravagant  noon,  down  to  the  murmurous 
eve, 

Lands  of  the  plenteous  vine  lay  in  their  vernal  adorning, 
Robed  in  immutable  calm,  God's  everlasting  reprieve. 

Lands  of  imperial  sun,  lands  of  enduring  fruition, 

Lands  where  abundant  the  wine  perfumed  the  madness 

of  youth, 

Lands  where  the  women  and  men  flamed  in  the  vernal  ig 
nition, 

Gained  through  the  shadows  of  sense  rays  from  the  ulti 
mate  truth. 

18 


THE   SONG   OF   THE  SWORD 

Where  on  the  tenanted  seas  flashed  the  flushed  feet  of  the 

moon-rise 
And  stirred  the  dumb  heart  with  its  touch — silent,  alone, 

unconfined ; 

Where,  as  to  promiseful  dawn,  scattered  the  natural  tune  dies, 
Women's  bare  feet  in  the  dew,  women's  wild  hair  in 
the  wind. 

Where — O  immaculate  dream — Hope  that  endureth  for 
ever, 

Beauty  and  adequate  peace  opened  wide  gates  for  the  soul, 
Where  the  low  lyric  of  love  welded  so  nought  could  dis 
sever, 

Where   there   was  marble   and  song,  where  death  was 
divine  and  its  dole. 

There  in  impossible  times,  lands  of  the  amorous  turtle, 
Still,  on  a  porphyry  shrine  lay  the  memorial  sword, 

Sheathed  in  reverberate  gold,  consecrate  laurel  and  myrtle, 
Cold  in  the  plenty  and  peace,  waiting  the  hand  of  the 

Lord. 

19 


THE   SONG  OF   THE   SWORD 

Passionate,  passive  and  proud,  stark  on  the  porphyry  altar, 
Menacing,  waiting  the  years,  serving  an  absolute  need, 

Ever  the  sword  is  at  hand,  lest,  when  the  hearts  of  men 

falter, 
Rise  from  the  satiate  peace  sons  of  degenerate  seed. 

So  there  may  come  to  the  need,  filled  with  enormous  de 
sire, 

One  from  the  mire  of  men  bearing  the  resonant  word, 
Then  shall  the  slumber  dissolve,  shattered  as  crystal  by 

fire, 

He  alone  voids  the  gold  sheath,  chaunting  the  song  of 
the  sword. 

Then  shall  the  spirits  of  men  wake  to  a  novel  refulgence, 
Over  the  marginal  sea  break  an  irradiate  star, 

Flame  shall  arise  in  the  heart,  desire  demanding  indul 
gence, 
Lust  of  the  greatness  of  earth,  lust  of  dominion  and  war. 


20 


GOD  of  the  hand  and  loin  and  burning  heart, 
God  of  the  whelming  ecstasy  and  lust, 
God  of  the  fretful  youth  and  lifeless  dust, 
God  that  art  travailed  with  a  vital  smart ! 

God  of  the  earlier  races,  limbed  like  Mars, 
Epic  as  Odin  echoing  bell-voiced  forth, 
God  of  the  sun-gilt  South  and  iron  North, 
Symbol  of  life's  impulsion — God  of  Wars  ! 

Thine,  in  thy  powerful  hand,  before  mankind 
Sprang  from  the  womb  of  nature,  blazed  the  sword, 
Forged  in  the  vital  heat  creation  poured, 
White  from  its  core  and  tempered  in  the  wind, 

That  walked  through  chaos  down  the  cold  expanse 

Of  lucent  solitude  from  sun  to  sun  ! 

O  sign  of  life  when  life  was  unbegun, 

This  life  of  earth  where  death  is  circumstance ! 


21 


THE  SONG 

WHEN  the  vortex  of  Heaven  was  blind 

The  sword 

Was  framed  from  a  primal  desire 
That  shook  thro'  the  void  like  a  wind ; 
Then  it  rose  as  a  shivering  fire 
And  crimsoned  God's  vision  of  peace ; 
Then  sank,  like  the  trail  of  a  star, 
Down  the  frail  twilight  of  space 
And  stood  over  hell  like  a  scar 
Furrowed  deep  in  the  forehead  of  night, 
Till  the  universe  called,  "  There  is  light, 
And  life  and  the  promise  of  war." 

Lamping  the  limitless  gloom, 

The  sword 

Glowed  in  the  saffron  of  Hell, 
As  might  in  a  tenanted  tomb 


THE  SONG 

Some  strenuous  memory  swell 

Over  death  and  illume  the  dead  eyes. 

Then — O  wonder ! — ere  ever  it  fell, 

A  hand  gat  the  sword  in  its  grasp, 

And  while  earth  and  sea  uttered  their  spawn, 

Far-flung  on  the  ocean  of  skies, 

It  lay  like  the  welter  of  dawn 

In  the  giant  immutable  clasp. 

Then  white  as  the  darkness  of  death 

The  sword 

Sang  like  a  boreal  breath 
Blown  thro'  the  idyll  of  dawn, 
Cadenced  as  steel  that  is  drawn 
Tense  thro'  the  crest  of  a  storm, 
It  exalted  the  choir  of  earth, 
Singing  deep  where  the  heart-blood  is  warm, 
And  pervaded  the  resonant  sky 
Like  the  solemn  and  sorrowful  mirth 

Of  life  that  is  living  to  die. 
23 


THE   SONG 

And  down  thro'  the  legended  years 

The  sword, 

Sonorous  with  laughter  and  tears, 
Has  sung  its  old  epic  to  man  ; 
And  the  earlier  glory  awakes 
As  when  life  in  its  anguish  began, 
Till,  whenever  the  noon-brilliance  shakes 
Down  the  scabbardless  steel,  joy  and  woe, 
All  is  blended  to  passion  that  has 
Neither  laughter,  nor  weeping,  nor  name, 
But  love  and  the  lusting  for  fame, 
Even  death  in  its  agony,  grow 
Into  life  that  is,  shall  be  and  was — 
Life  the  ichor  of  earth,  the  spring-throe, 
Ever  manifold,  ever  the  same. 


24 


AFTER-WORD 

Is  it  this,  Beloved,  this  the  secret  ? — 
Life,  the  earth  life,  thee  and  me  compelling, 
Life  and  only  life  ? — Where  flowers  have  withered, 
Lavished  perfume  on  the  impartial  breezes, 
Fed  the  bee  and  crowned  the  bush  with  beauty, 
Then,  the  summer  spent,  the  petals  perish, 
Then,  the  spring  returned,  the  sap  returning, 
Novel  buds  that  ripen  to  perfection, — 
Flowers  may  fade  but  never  so  the  impulse, 
Shift  the  scenes  the  play  goes  on  forever  ? — 
Is  it  this,  Beloved,  this  the  secret  ? 

Oh,  consider  ! — Sure  that  life  endureth — 
Do  I  kiss  thy  lips,  thine  adolescent 

Breast  of  marble,  do  my  fingers  even 

25 


AFTER-WORD 

Touch  thy  hand,  the  perfume  of  thy  tresses 
Fall  upon  my  sense,  thy  voice's  cadence 
Turn  concordant  all  my  soul's  confusion — 
Do  I  these,  or  look  upon  thee  even, 
Comes  a  certainty  of  life's  persistence, 
Life  that  speaks  in  thee,  in  me,  in  nature, 
Life  demanding  choate  form  and  substance, 
Life  pervasive,  deathless  and  enduring. 

Is  it  this,  Beloved,  this  the  secret  ? 

This  I  sing  to,  since  the  word  suffices, 

This  thou  hearest  ? — I  strove  to  sing  the  man's  song, 

Sing  the  earth's  song,  Life,  the  strength  and  splendour  ! 

Thou  did'st  lean  and  hark  and  comprehend  me  : — 

Life  abideth,  thou  must  know — a  lover  ! — 

Thou  did'st  know  and  then,  and  then — I,  pausing, 

Hear  you  question,  "Is  it  this,  the  secret ?" 

Hear  you  ask,  "  Is  life  the  spirits  answer? 

Shall  the  inward  voice  be  stilled  in  living  ? ' ' 

Hear  you  wonder,  "  What's  the  good  of  life,  then? 
26 


AFTER-WORD 

Why  endure  the  pain  and  natural  anguish, 
Wherefore  draw  the  furrow,  sweat  the  year -long, 
When  the  winter  shuts  its  jaws  of  crystal, 
Kills  the  generous  spring,  refuses  fruitage — 
This  the  secret  ?    What's  the  good  of  life  then  ?  " 

Ah,  there's  still  a  song — men  strive  to  sing  it, 

Sing  their  striving,  reach  their  goal,  are  silent. 

What's  the  song? — No  utterance  can  confine  it 

Only  silence  great  enough  to  bear  it. 

I  who  cannot  praise  thee,  thee  my  woman, 

Singing  life,  as  dim  as  life  my  verses, 

Could  I  call  the  winds  and  waves  to  witness, 

Could  I  pull  the  stars  down  from  their  courses, 

Were  I  lion-voiced  as  old  Jehovah, 

Then  my  words  could  be  but  shadowy  symbols  ; 

None  may  phrase  the  spirit's  simple  knowledge, 

And  the  secret  and  the  revelation 

Of  what  is  not,  where  the  mind  of  mortal 

Turns  to  ashes  and  where  life  is  tacit. 

27 


AFTER-WORD 

Oh,  my  Well-Beloved  forget  the  paean  ! 

Let  the  sword-blade  and  the  gold  and  glory 

Warp  no  longer  thine  eternal  vision. 

Seek  thy  soul,  and,  rinding,  cease  from  struggle  ; 

Cease,  forget  the  song  of  life  and  living ; 

That's  the  world's  way — Life  and  more  and  endless, 

Copious  earth-life  in  its  rich  completion, 

Life  and  death  and  after,  Life  eternal, 

Sapphire  pavements  and  the  domes  of  opal, 

Life  of  blended  music  fair  and  fancied : 

Only  life — what  life  might  be — a  vision  ! 

Then  the  Soul's  way  :  lapse  from  sound  to  silence, 

Merge  oblivious  in  entire  ceasing 

In  thy  nativeness,  the  matrix  ocean, 

Thou  a  spray-drop  hung  on  slippery  verges ; 

Ah !  the  world's  way — thine  to  be  no  longer  ; 

Thine  the  soul's  way,  thou  hast  seen  and  known  it ! 

Like  an  empty  tale  the  worlds  shall  vanish, 

Frail  as  dream,  and  life  be  quite  forgotten. 
28 


AFTER-WORD 

What  of  life-songs  then,  and  what  of  death-songs  ? 
Sound  and  fury  down  the  babbling  ages, 
They  shall  cease,  the  echoes  pass  and  perish ; 
On  the  void  the  'stablishment  eternal 
Bides  alone — the  Soul's  gigantic  silence. 


BALLAD 

SHE  died  and  lay  in  her  grave  of  stone, 
Alone  in  her  shroud  with  open  eyes, 

And  an  angel  came  from  the  awful  throne 
To  lead  her  soul  through  the  seven  skies. 

He  stood  at  her  coffin  in  solemn  mirth 
And  called  her  spirit  to  leave  its  sleep, 

But  her  soul  replied  from  the  frozen  earth, 
"  It  is  not  for  God  that  I  wait  and  weep !  " 

He  sought  her  hand  in  her  silver  shroud 

But  her  soul  looked  out  from  her  sunken  eyes, 
And  the  angel  turned  with  his  forehead  bowed 

And  rose  alone  through  the  seven  skies. 
30 


BALLAD 

And  she  lay  alone  in  her  hearse  of  stone 

And  her  spirit  watched  like  a  sleepless  flame, 

And  her  lover  arose  from  a  dream  of  moan 
And  came  to  her  tomb  and  spake  her  name. 

He  whispered,  "  I  come  from  the  world  of  sin ; 

My  heart  desires,  my  soul  is  proud ; 
Shall  I  open  thy  coffin  and  come  within, 

Or  lead  thee  forth  in  thy  silver  shroud  ?  " 

And  the  Lady  rose  in  her  awful  pride, 

For  her  soul  was  strong  with  the  wine  of  Love, 

And  she  said,  "  I  have  waited  to  be  thy  bride, 
Though  God  desired  me  there  above." 

And  he  whispered,  "  Love,  I  have  come  and  found  ! 

I  have  died  with  thee,  for  my  life  was  thine, 
And  our  bridal  bed  is  the  frozen  ground, — 

If  heaven  is  lost  thou  art  wholly  mine. 
31 


BALLAD 

"  The  love  of  our  lives  can  bear  the  frown 
Of  God  Himself,  though  our  lives  are  gone." 

And  he  drew  her  close  while  they  laid  them  down 
Lip  to  lip  in  the  tomb  of  stone. 


DAWN 

THE  swoon  of  night's  delicate  whisper,  the  tense  wide  still 
ness  of  birth, 

The  holy  awaiting  of  sound  in  the  soul  of  the  slumberous 
earth, 

The  peace  compelling  our  tears  for  the  shame  of  the  agon 
ized  flesh, 

Ere  creation  has  riven  its  grave-clothes  and  come  on  the 
world  afresh. 

The  dawn  that  doth  come  like  a  song  aflame  on  the  lips 
of  the  world, 

The  grasses'  hymn  to  the  dew,  and  the  resonant  wave  that 
is  hurled 

From  the  reticent  soul  of  the  waters,  and  about  the  death 
bed  of  night 

Resurrection  pulsating  like  music,  and  the  heavens  enor 
mous  with  light. 

33 


DAWN 

Dear  God  !   how  the  pulses  beat  faster,  as,  lo !   with  the 

rush  of  a  wind, 
From  the  labyrinth  caves  of  our  slumber  we  feel  we  have 

brought  forth  a  mind ; 
And  the  shock  as  the  shock  of  battle,  when  our  vision 

rends  the  veil 
As  the  sun  swims  in  blood  on  the  waters; — 'tis  the  Life  of 

our  life  doth  prevail ! 

The  exquisite  fabric  of  morning,  too  pure  for  the  spoken 

word, 
From  the  cedar-tree  woven  with  twilight  has  uttered  the 

song  of  a  bird, 
'Tis  the  wild,  pure  paean  of  pity,  ever  new  since  the  world 

began, 
'Tis  the  sadness  fragrant  with  promise — a  day  that  is  given 

to  Man  ! 


34 


SUNSET 

THE  sea  a  great  vague  mistiness  of  blue, 
A  thread  of  murmur  drawn  about  the  shore, 
The  journeying  of  wind  across  the  moor 

Even  and  slow  and  delicate  with  dew. 

The  peace  of  ancient  sorrow  come  anew, 
The  resignation  of  a  great  despair 
And  failing  of  all  struggle  into  prayer; — 

The  promise  of  a  day  is  proved  untrue. 

The  choired  sweetness  of  home-gathered  birds, 
The  tall  gaunt  shadows  and  the  mellow  light, 
The  tired  leaves  that  fold  against  the  tree ; 

Within  the  heart  unutterable  words, 

The  pure  compassion  of  the  toward  night — 

A  day  that  dies  and  never  more  shall  be. 


35 


THE  GATES  OF  LIFE 

HELD  in  the  bosom  of  night,  large  to  the  limits  of  wonder, 
Close  where  the  refluent  seas  wrinkle  the  wandering  sands, 
Where,  with  a  tenderness  torn  from  the  secrets  of  sorrow, 

and  under 

The  pale  pure  spaces  of  night  felt  like  ineffable  hands, 
The  weak  strange  pressure  of  winds  moved  with  the  mov 
ing  of  waters, 
Vast  with  their  solitude,  sad  with  their  silences,  strange 

with  their  sound, 
Comes  like  a  sigh  from  the  sleep  of  the  realmless  Olympian 

daughters, 

Widowed  of  worship  by  time,  at  the  feet  of  their  father 
uncrowned. 

Held  in  the  bosom  of  night,  with  the  wind  in  my  face,  and 
the  ocean 

Stirred  thro'  its  tremulous  deeps  with  the  unfulfilled  dawn 
ing  of  moon, 

36 


THE  GATES  OF   LIFE 

As  involved  in  the  power  of  life  and  ashake  with  the  pulse 

of  emotion 
It  waited,  when  slow  thro'  the  void  came  the  primitive 

promise  of  noon. 
Filled  with  the  open  avowals  of  nature,  the  choral  that 

falters 
Only  to  swell  thro'  the  channels  of  song  like  an  affluent 

stream, 
Pure  with  old  faiths  of  the  heart  that  have  died  in  the 

horns  of  their  altars, 
Leaving  their  beauty  to  live  like  the  memories  kept  of  a 

dream. 


Like  the  fragments  of  immanent  silence,  like  the  dew  of 

immense  resurrection 
Falls  the  night  on  mine  eyes,  in  the  curve  of  my  lips  the 

fresh  tears  of  the  sea, 
And  like  rifts  in  the  texture  of  life,  like  the  soul  in  empiric 

reflection, 

37 


THE   GATES   OF   LIFE 

Come  the  tacit  and  lingering  lapses  where  the  phantoms  of 
Heaven  are  free. 

There  is  peace  in  the  winds,  the  invisible  pinions  of  dark, 
there  is  patience  enduring 

In  the  native  and  motionless  outlines  of  headland  and  for 
est  and  stone, 

There  is  love  in  the  perfumes  essential  of  earth,  the  old 
impulse  maturing 

To  fruitage,  and  calm  in  the  star-scattered  chasms  where 
night  is  alone. 


I  am  drenched  with  the  night,  I  am  drunk  with  the  wine 
she  prepares  for  the  spirit, 

I  am  bathed  in  her  solitudes,  filled  with  her  proper  im 
mensities,  mad 

With  the  perilous  visions  of  realms  that  my  soul,  is  it 
strong,  may  inherit, 

With  the  simple  and  adequate  bounty  of  natural  things  : — 

I  am  sad 

38 


THE  GATES  OF   LIFE 

With  the  solemn  completeness  of  joy  that  abides  in  the 

centres  of  sorrow, 
The  sadness  of  life  understood  in  its  prophecy,  loved  in  its 

pain, 
I  am  alien  to  yesterday,  held  on  the  heart-beat  of  time, 

tho'  to-morrow 
Return  and  its  temperance  fall  on  my  zenith  like  colourless 

rain. 


I  am  urged  with  the  germinal  ichor  whose  functional  vigour 

increases, 
Subsides  and  suspires  and  fashions  the  world  to  its  purpose 

again — 
For  the  sands  shall  be  fluent  with  sea  when  life's  tremulous 

episode  ceases, 
And  winds  from  the  regions  of  sunset  blow  warm  with  the 

perfume  of  rain. 
The  darkness  shall  furnish  its  delicate  silence,  the  destitute 

spaces 

39 


THE   GATES   OF   LIFE 

August  with  disseminate  suns  shall  be  heritage  still  for  the 

soul, 
And  old  memories  warm   from   the   heart   shall   inhabit 

earth's  intimate  places, 
When  the  cool,  kind  fingers  of  death  loose  our  bonds  and 

we  leap  to  the  goal. 


Tho'  life  shall  return   to  me,  sadden  me  cinctured  with 

sin  and  besotten 
With  heartless  immoderate  voices,  and  stale  with  perversion 

of  truth, 
I  have  tasted  the  lips  of  the  night,  the  caress  of  its  wind, 

and  forgotten, 
Alone  on  the  bosom  of  nature,  the  days  that  shall  wither 

my  youth ; 
I  have  felt  with  the  manifold  ocean,  with  the  blind,  blank, 

lustreless  shining 
Of  starlight,  and  tasted  intensely  the  crude  cold  smells  of 

the  earth, 

40 


THE  GATES  OF   LIFE 

I  have  put  my  weak  hands  in  the  large  hands  of  nature 

that  caught  me  declining 
Thro"  colourless  ashes  of  thought  in  the  fear  of  perpetual 

birth. 

She  found  me  and  nourished  me,  nourished  mine  eyes  that 
were  thirsty  for  shadow, 

My  heart  that  desired  her  blindly,  my  senses  diseased  in 
the  rife, 

Blurred  phases  of  mortal  desire,  my  soul  that  replied  to 
her  sad,  slow 

Power,  her  promise  of  ultimate  peace  thro'  the  strength  of 
her  life ; 

Her  life  that  is  lost  in  its  bigness  and  big  with  the  prim 
itive  glories, 

Can  it  save  from  the  life  that  is  cramped  in  the  dust-stifled 
highways  of  men, 

Can  it  open  the  gates  of  the  soul  where  the  vital  com 
mencement  and  core  is, 

And  the  soul  leave  the  centres  of  life  and  be  merged  into 
nothing  again  ? 


THE   GATES   OF   LIFE 

Can  life  save  from  itself?     Oh,  Beloved  !  thine  eyes  over 
come  me,  and  longer 
Than  flesh  can  endure  is  the  kiss  on  the  dew  of  thy  lips 

and  the  flame, 
And  the  old  safe  landmarks  of  life  are  lost  in  its  volume, 

while  stronger 
It  widens  till  sorrow  and  happiness,  virtue  and  sin,  are  the 

same ! 
For  love  is  coeval  with  life  and  what  were  divided  are  one 

now, 
As  we  leap  in  the  night,  as  we  plunge  in  the  well-spring  of 

nature,  and  then 
The  world  grows  coherent  with  music — Oh,  haste !  shall 

our  Heaven  be  won  now, 
And  the  manna  of  earth  changed  to  food  for  the  ultimate 

soul-wants  of  men  ? 

Shall  life  turn  to  death  in  the  living  ?    Shall  we  pass  from 
the  heart-shaken  centres 

Of  nature,  the  pinnacled  crisis  and  powerful  matrix  of  life, 

42 


THE  GATES  OF   LIFE 

That  project  thro'  the  cosmical  fabric,  where  the  sea- 
meadows  pulse,  where  the  scent  stirs 

In  flowers  that  feed  the  faint  breezes,  the  eternal  progenital 
strife  ? 

Can  we  pass  to  the  perfect  cessation  where  life  is  a  dream 
unrecurring  ? — 

Earth's  divisionless  ecstasy  fills  me,  till  my  body  is  rent 
with  the  strain, — 

Oh,  Heart ! — could  the  flesh  but  endure  the  full  splendour 
of  life  and  enduring 

Dissolve  in  the  quiet  perfection  of  death,  without  hope, 
without  pain ! 


43 


MOTHERS   OF  MEN 
WEEP,  mothers  of  men  ! 

•s 

Out  of  pain  ye  have  peopled  the  earth, 
And  the  pain  of  life  is  the  pain  of  birth, 
With  its  sordid  lust  and  its  evil  mirth, 

And  yet  ye  have  borne  and  must  bear  again — 

Weep,  mothers  of  men  ! 

Weep,  mothers  of  men  ! 

The  toil  of  body  and  ache  of  brain, 
The  sweat  of  life  at  the  end  proves  vain  ; 
Your  children  leave  you  to  dare  the  strain, 

Your  children  return  to  you  alien — 

Weep,  mothers  of  men  ! 
44 


MOTHERS   OF    MEN 

Weep,  mothers  of  men  ! 

The  hands  of  the  world  are  strong  to  take 
The  lives  ye  bear  for  the  world's  sole  sake, 
To  try  their  souls  till  they  bend  or  break : 

Your  children  vanish  from  out  your  ken — 

Weep,  mothers  of  men  ! 

Weep,  mothers  of  men  ! 

For  a  woman's  lips,  for  the  lust  of  gold, 
Your  children's  honour  is  bought  and  sold, 
Your  children  die  in  the  dark  and  cold, 

Your  children  never  shall  come  again — 

Weep,  mothers  of  men  ! 

Weep,  mothers  of  men  ! 

The  human  heart  is  the  proper  sheath 

For  the  dagger  of  life ;  ye  have  blown  the  breath 

Of  life  in  the  world  and  it  ends  in  death ; 

Your  children  live  and  die,  and  then  ? — 

Weep,  mothers  of  men  ! 

45 


MOTHERS   OF   MEN 

Weep,  mothers  of  men ! 

Weep  and  pray  to  the  God  whose  scorn 
Has  given  ye  life  that  men  may  be  born : 
Hearts  to  suffer  and  eyes  to  mourn, 
For  the  crown  of  love  is  a  crown  of  thorn, 

And  your  children  return  to  you  alien, 

Perish  and  never  return  again — 

Weep,  mothers  of  men  1 


46 


LOVE  IN  AGE 


IT  was  never  more  than  a  face, 
An  impression  merely ;  a  bit 
Of  failing  landscape — her  grace 
Just  caught  as  the  rain-cloud  split 
And  the  air  grew  warm  a  space. 

And  now  it  is  many  years, 
And  I,  with  my  thin  hair  gray, 
Face  wrinkled — perhaps  by  tears  ! — 
'Tis  strange  how  my  yesterday 
Of  dead  youth  reappears. 

I  wonder  if  after  all 

I've  any  right  to  complain  ! 

As  the  shadows  weave  on  the  wall, 

And  we  feel  the  wash  of  rain 

Through  the  light  grown  thin  and  small 
47 


LOVE   IN   AGE 

As  we  sit  and  cherish  the  hearth, 
While  the  dead  come  one  by  one 
And  mime  their  long-quenched  mirth, 
I  feel  I  have  grown  alone 
And  cold  on  a  living  earth. 

Well,  one  of  the  dear  mute  things 
That  climb  up  out  of  the  dark 
Is  this  face,  this  moment  that  clings 
To  life  and  me,  like  a  spark 
That  all  the  dead  sunlight  flings. 

Just  rain-starred,  blowing  grass, 
The  scent  of  the  fluent  air, 
Her  profile — eyes  like  glass 
That  kept  a  jewel,  hair 
All  mystery — I  thought  to  pass 

And  she  turned — one  look  to  me 

Carelessly,  then  away 
48 


LOVE   IN   AGE 

Out  over  the  flat  gray  sea 
Where  the  white  squall  fled  away 
And  the  light  broke  scatteredly. 

And  then  I  knew  that  her  face 
Was  all  in  my  blood ;  half-blind, 
I  paused,  eyes  closed,  a  space — 
And  after  ? — naught  but  wind 
And  the  clouds  blown  fine  as  lace. 

And  there — the  story's  told  j 
And  hardly  worth,  you'll  say — 
Perhaps  to  yourself:   "  He's  old 
And  wanders" — yet  far  away 
I  know  that  the  days  were  gold 
As  the  past  says  "  I  shall  repay." 

And  the  memory,  three  parts  grief, 
Is  exquisite  and  real 

With  a  joy  unlived ;  but  chief, 
49 


LOVE   IN   AGE 

As  the  warm  drops  heartward  steal, 
With  a  present  strange  belief 

That  all  we  have  been  and  done 
And  lived  and  suffered  and  loved 
Come  back  as  we  sit  alone 

In  the  old  years,  sure  and  proved, 
And  give  us  the  crown  we  won. 

And  say,  "  The  living  was  worth ; 
The  little  laugh,  much  tears, 
The  fight  ye  fought  on  earth, 
All  come  in  the  latter  years 
More  real  in  a  richer  birth." 

Ah !  there's  the  old,  old  pain — 
I  stand  in  the  sultry  air 
And  think  I  see  again, 
Dimly,  her  wind-blown  hair 

Through  the  drift  of  seaward  rain. 
50 


A   MEMORY 

"  Quel  labbro,  ond'  alto 
Par,  come  d'uraa  piena, 
Traboccare  il  piacer." 

— LEOPARDI. 

I  REMEMBER  but  half-aright, 

Through  the  wine,  a  cloud  of  hair, 
And  her  breast's  dishevelled  white ; 
While  a  perfume  touched  the  air, 

And  her  eyes  grew  cold  with  light. 

I  remember  the  colour's  play 
In  the  carmine  wine,  and  round 

The  hush  of  an  infant  day 
The  viol's  silver  sound 

Burn  up  and  sob  away. 
51 


A  MEMORY 

Behold  she  comes  to  me  now 
And  I  kiss  her  naked  hand, 

For  her  sin  of  the  lips  and  brow 
And  love — I  can  understand 

And  praise  for  the  good  I  know. 

Your  virtue  is  sterile  as  drouth 
And  vain  as  your  chilly  words  : 

This  woman  is  all  my  youth 

Of  wine,  and  the  clash  of  swords, 

And  a  kiss  on  the  open  mouth. 

So  give  me  her  lips  again, 

For  I  care  not  if  heaven  condemn, 
I  have  set  on  the  brows  of  pain 

Her  desire  for  diadem — 
And  life  has  been  so  much  gain  ! 


AGE 

ART  thou  not  cold  ? 

Brother,  alone  to-night  on  God's  great  earth ; 

Art  thou  not  cold  ? 

In  years  of  old 

The  simple,  tender,  rude, 

Strong  love  of  men  was  thine,  the  fire-bright  hearth 

Where  now  is  silence  of  long  solitude. 

Art  thou  not  old  ? 

Withered  and  white  in  these  uncounted  days ; 

Art  thou  not  old  ? 

Thy  tale  is  told, 

And  quite  forgot  as  thou, 

To  whom  the  world  flung  out  a  moment's  praise, 

Then  tore  the  laurel  from  thy  bleeding  brow. 

53 


AGE 

Art  thou  not  sad? 

Dost  thou  not  feel  the  welling  of  great  tears  ? 

Art  thou  not  sad  ? 

How  grave  and  glad 

They  rest,  the  quiet  dead  j 

And  thou — how  dost  thou  live  in  these  dim  years  ? — 

Thy  heart  has  begged  from  God  and  starved  for  bread. 

Shalt  thou  not  die, 

Brother  ?  the  chill  is  fearful  on  thy  life. 

Shalt  thou  not  die  ? 

Is  this  a  lie, 

This  threadbare  hope — of  death  ? 

A  lie  like  God,  and  human  love,  and  strife 

For  pride  and  fame — this  soiled  and  withered  wreath? 


Art  thou  not  cold  ? 

Brother,  alone  on  God's  great  earth  to-night ; 

Art  thou  not  cold  ? 

54 


AGE 

Art  thou  not  old 

And  dying  and  forlorn  ? 

Art  thou  not  choking  in  the  last  stern  fight 

While  in  divine  indifference  glows  the  morn  ? 


55 


EVENING 

\ 
THE  strangled  breath 

Of  life  and  death 

Fails  to  a  lost  complaint  and  dies, 

And  softer  than  sleep  a  tawny  light 

Furrows  with  fire  the  dawn  of  night 

As  the  moon  swells  soft  o'er  the  ocean's  white 

Like  love  through  the  desert  centuries. 

And  the  long-linked  years 

Bring  their  large  arrears 

Of  sorrow  and  passion  and  great  surmise, 

And  I  know  with  a  sense  of  familiar  pain 

That  the  dead  hopes  never  can  come  again, 

That  the  lust  and  struggle  and  tears  are  vain, 

While  ever  the  future  smiles  and  lies. 


TO  A  WOMAN 

How  shall  it  seem  to  thee  when  thou  art  old  ? 

When  this,  the  dust  in  which  I  wrote  my  name, 
And  I  in  memory's  twilight  lost  and  cold 

Have  grown  too  unremembered  to  defame  ? 

Perchance  that  when  thine  eyes  are  dull  with  drouth, 
Thy  beauty  haggard,  thou  shalt  think  on  me 

And  cry,  "  His  name  is  ashes  in  the  mouth  ! 
His  name  I  speak  in  dying  misery." 

Perchance  thy  rage  shall  sob  its  full  despair  : 

"  He  was  more  masterful  than  Time  and  fell, 
Weak  in  the  world,  to  lie  despised  and  bare — 

In  death  a  chord,  in  life  a  broken  bell." 

57 


TO   A   WOMAN 

Or  shall  thy  pride  be  mightier  and  say : 

' '  He  fought  and  failed  and — Peace  !  the  scorn  was  best ! 
With  his  forgotten  deeds  the  years  are  gray, 

And  now  his  brow  I  crowned  is  fallen  to  rest. ' ' 

My  heart  instructs  me  it  shall  seem  to  thee 
In  no  such  wise;  thy  lips  may  praise  or  blame 

And  leave  the  heart  its  loving — thou  to  me, 
Thy  cheek  that  withers,  my  forgotten  name. 


THE  END 

II  sempre  sospirar  nulla  rileva. 

— IL  PETRARCA. 

I  SAID,  "  Since  Life  is  old  with  pain, 
Since  words  are  cold  and  tears  are  dead, 
And  nothing  now  is  left  unsaid, 
And  all  the  strain  of  thought  is  vain ; 

"  Since  joy  by  joy  the  dreadful  past 
Is  paid  in  agony  of  soul, 
Since  held  in  life's  severe  control, 
Our  shaken  hearts  are  mute  at  last 

"  Since  echoless  and  unrevealed, 
Beyond,  the  sad  impending  days 
Shall  take  us  both  in  several  ways, 

Thro*  worlds  of  windy  rain  concealed  • 
59 


THE   END 

' '  Since  we  have  stood  alone  and  proud 
And  paid  for  every  joy  in  full, 
And  living  touched  the  flames  of  Hell 
And  given  life  the  tears  we  owed  : 

' '  We  who  have  felt  the  wild  lament, 
The  voids  of  darkness,  cold  and  pain, 
That  base  the  life  we  hold  in  vain, 
That  vainly  come  is  vainly  spent, 

"  May  watch  alone  the  myriads  pass 
Their  low  and  level  twilight  way, 
Where  never  falls  the  splendid  sway 
Of  primal  truth  that  is  and  was. 

"  The  balance  only  lifts  to  fall, 

The  hemlock  almost  seems  divine 

To  us,  whose  lips  have  touched  the  wine 

That  makes  God's  lips  grow  musical. 
60 


THE    END 

"  And  they,  who  neither  know  nor  feel, 
Are  strange  to  us  nor  understand — 
I  lay  my  lips  upon  thy  hand 
And  joy  and  pain  grow  tense  as  steel. ' ' 


61 


NEANT 


Et  toi,  divine  Mort,  oil  tout  rentre  et  s'efface, 
Accueille  tes  enfants  dans  ton  sein  etoile ; 

Affranchis-nous  du  temps,  du  nombre  et  de  1'espace, 
Et  rends  nous  le  repos  que  la  vie  a  troublee !  " 

— LECONTE  DE  LISLE. 


I  TELL  you  this — each  lapse  of  light 
That  glares  the  world  from  roof  to  floor, 
Shall  leave,  as  days  that  died  before, 
This  envelope  of  antient  night. 

O  Heart !  this  wash  of  fluent  air, 
The  ocean's  calm  sonorous  stir, 
That  floods  the  huge  horizon's  blur, 

Dissolves  in  silence,  like  a  prayer 
62 


N£ANT 

That  threads  the  still  cathedral's  peace, 
A  rhythmic  pathway  thro'  the  grave, 
Eternal  twilight  of  the  nave, 
Whose  silences  shall  never  cease. 

The  fret  of  youth,  the  sword  and  wreath, 
The  flush  of  fame,  the  vernal  smart, 
The  human  tears  that  flood  the  heart 
Are  sparkles  on  the  void  of  death. 

For  every  life  returns  to  this — 
We  are  and  are  not,  one  by  one, 
As  zones  and  systems,  sun  by  sun, 
Burn  out — the  darkness  ever  is. 

Yea,  life  and  light,  the  sea  and  star, 
Upon  the  warp  of  things  sublime, 
Seem  only — Never  touched  by  time 
Old  night  and  death  and  silence  are. 


YOUTH 

IF  I  must  die, 

The  earth  is  inarticulate  to  sing 

The  dirge  I  crave : 

The  sorrow  of  the  murmur-laden  wave, 

The  sea-born  wind  complaining  'neath  the  sky, 

And  round  my  head  the  waters'  silver  ring. 

If  I  must  live, 

And  feel  the  ashes  of  oblivion 

About  my  soul, 

Let  life  be  fearful,  let  me  feel  the  whole, 

Despair,  and  face  the  sunrise — if  I  grieve 

Let  it  but  be  the  tarrying  of  the  sun. 


64 


SERENADE 

SLEEP  !  for  the  silver  dawn  is  folded  still 

Within  the  sea ; 

Sleep  !  for  the  trees  are  slumberous  on  the  hill, 
The  lark  is  tuneless  and  the  crickets  thrill — 

To  wake  is  misery. 

Sleep  !  for  the  heart  of  God  has  slept  to  dream 

A  better  world ; 

Sleep!  for  the  day  is  sadder  than  we  deem: 
Perchance  thy  soul  shall  lapse  along  the  stream 

The  lotus  flower  impearled. 

Sleep  !  Oh,  my  Love,  for  I  am  open-eyed 

Upon  the  sun ; 

Sleep !  for  I  would  the  heavens  were  yet  more  wide, 
The  stars  more  limpid,  and  that  I  had  died 

Ere  yet  the  night  was  done. 


65 


SONG 

MY  Love,  thine  eyes  have  been  to  me 
Like  to  a  bird  that  singeth  in  the  night 
To  one  who  waits  the  coming  of  the  light 
Through  the  enormous  solitude  of  sea. 

Thy  beauty  fell  upon  my  mind 
Like  song  to  one  within  a  darkling  land 
Who,  with  fear  on  him  like  a  bloodless  hand, 
Hears  the  large,  hurrying  whisper  of  the  wind. 

My  Love,  thy  heart  is  like  a  prayer 
To  one  who,  dying  at  the  gates  of  morn, 
Stirless,  in  splendid  effort  and  great  scorn, 

Sends  forth  his  soul  to  meet  the  last  despair. 
66 


SONG 

And  oh,  thy  Love  is  as  a  road 

To  one  who  waits  in  deserts  of  the  soul, 

And  sees  through  Life,  whose  waves  of  fever  roll, 

The  waking  Sorrow  in  the  breast  of  God. 


67 


SONG 

OUT  of  one  heart  the  birds  and  I  together, 

Earth  hushed  in  twilight, 
Low  through  the  live-oaks  hung  heavy  with  silver, 

Gemmed  with  the  sky-light, 
Under  the  great  wet  star 
Shaking  with  light,  we  jar 
Lute-voiced  the  silence  with  intervalled  music. 

While  under  the  margined  world  the  slow  sun  lingers, 

Flaming  earth's  portal, 
Over  the  lilac  dusk  spreads  his  great  fingers — 

Earth  is  immortal ! 
While  the  frail  beauty  dies, 
Dream  in  the  dreamer's  eyes, 

All  the  good  gladness  turns  praise  for  the  singers. 
68 


SONG 

Hark,  'tis  the  breath  of  life  !  Hush  !  and  I  need  it ; 

Northern,  gigantic, — 
Questing  the  silences,  herding  the  sudden  foam 

Down  the  Atlantic ; 
Leaves  from  the  autumn's  store 
Shrill  at  my  desert  door, 
They  and  I  out  of  one  heart  that  is  grieving. 


69 


"  Or  poserai  per  sempre, 
Stance  mio  cor."  — LEOPARDI. 

SILENT,  alone  !  Around  the  wrinkled  earth 
My  lips  can  feel  the  final  heart-throb  creep, 

While  autumn  fills  the  world  with  solemn  mirth 
That  freights  the  vine  and  gilds  the  ripened  sheaves 
That  summer  promised ;  and  upon  my  sleep 
The  guardian  oak  shall  drop  its  pride  of  leaves. 

Silent,  alone  !  Beneath  the  sleepless  stars 

This  cloven  peak  shall  stand  against  the  moon 

In  windy  solitude,  the  whispered  wars 
Of  waters  writhed  in  silver  at  my  feet 
Shall  hush  the  verges  of  the  world  and  croon 

A  sure  compassion  for  my  sure  defeat. 
70 


Silent,  alone !  The  river  seeks  the  sea, 
The  dew-drop  on  the  rose  desires  its  sun  ! 

Oh,  prisoned  Soul,  shall  thou  alone  be  free  ? 
Shalt  thou  escape  the  curse  of  death  and  birth 
And  merge  thy  sorrows  in  oblivion  ? 
Thou,  thou  alone  of  all  the  living  earth  ? 

Silent,  alone !  I  know  when  next  the  dawn 
Shall  cast  its  vision  through  the  desert  sea 

And  find  me  not,  the  sword  that  I  have  drawn 
Shall  flash  between  the  twilights,  and  a  word 
Shall  praise  what  I  was  not  but  strove  to  be, 
Saying  :  "  Behold  the  mercy  of  the  Lord." 


THEY 

"  Oh  sprich  mir  nicht  von  jener  bunten  Menge, 
Bei  deren  Anblick  uns  der  Geist  entflieht !  " 

— GOETHE. 

THEIR  voices  die  and  calmly  leave 
This  interlude  of  running  rain, 
This  solitude  of  heart  and  brain, 
This  solemn  pause  and  brief  reprieve. 

And  as  their  voices  they  shall  die, 
Dim  darkened  spirits  dulled  with  sound ; 
The  truth  they  never  sought  nor  found 
Shall  give  their  little  lives  the  lie. 

They  live  for  life,  their  needs  are  filled, 
And  in  their  false  and  narrow  scope 
They  mock  at  dream  and  jeer  at  hope ; 

Their  foolish  noise  shall  soon  be  stilled. 
72 


THEY 

They  live  and  laugh  and  cease  to  be, 
They  fade  and  fall  and  rise  again, 
Their  scorn  is  false,  their  praise  is  vain, 
They  live  and  die  unceasingly. 

They  are  as  writings  on  the  snow, 
That  pass  and  leave  no  trace  behind ; 
They  mocked  the  sun,  for  they  were  blind, 
The  Truth,  because  they  could  not  know. 

Have  patience  !     Yet  a  little  while, 
Thou,  too,  shall  pass  beyond  their  ken  ; 
The  stupid  scorn  of  vulgar  men 
May  madden,  but  cannot  defile. 

If  on  the  fire-forged  nether  springs 
Thy  hands  shall  base  the  work  they  do, 
What  matter  if  the  pure  and  true 

Be  bought  and  sold  for  meaner  things  ? 
73 


THEY 

For  if  thro'  thee,  whate'er  the  cost, 
Pure  light  may  shine  in  word  or  deed, 
Thy  work  shall  live  ;   thou  art  the  seed 
Of  what  can  never  quite  be  lost. 

So  take  no  heed  of  all  the  loud, 
Persistent  folly,  scorn  and  sin, 
But,  where  the  light  has  entered  in, 
Look  steadfast,  unafraid  and  proud. 

They  pass  like  winds  that  chafe  the  sea- 
Strive  on  un vexed  with  fear  or  hate, 
For  calm  abides  and  consummate 
The  Peace  that  was,  is  and  shall  be. 


74 


TO  A  BUST  OF  THE  MATER  DOLOROSA 

"     .     .     .     et  sur  nos  croix  d'ebene 
Ton  cadavre  celeste  en  poussiere  est  tombe !  " 

-DE  MUSSET. 

OH,  Dolorous  Mother  with  the  silver  tears, 
That  in  the  withered  day  of  Jesus'  pain 

Received  the  flame  of  heaven-inspired  prayers 
Upon  thy  pale,  ascetic  lips  in  vain  ! 

Thou,  Israel's  daughter,  with  white  arms  apart 
On  Death's  dishevelled  midnight,  felt  despair 

Weep  tears  of  blood  upon  thy  broken  heart 
And  tears  of  silver  through  thy  solemn  hair. 

In  vain  thine  agony  grew  almost  sweet 

With  pity  at  His  death,  and  vainly  there 
The  Magdalen  lavished  on  His  wounded  feet 

Her  lips'  caress,  her  opulence  of  hair. 
75 


TO   A  BUST   OF   THE   MATER   DOLOROSA 

In  vain  thy  Son  raised  Lazarus  from  the  dust, 
In  vain  He  brake  the  bread  and  shared  the  wine, 

In  vain  they  wore  His  sign,  the  meek  and  just, 
In  vain  He  was  a  symbol  and  a  shrine  ! 

In  vain  !  Thine  image  crumbles  and  is  gone, 
Thine  hallowed  altar  is  an  empty  sign, 

And  these  mine  unbelieving  lips  are  stone 
That  kiss  thy  dust  amid  those  tears  of  thine  ! 


76 


TO  PSYCHE 

FORESPENT  I  sat  at  the  morning's  gate 
And  Psyche  beside  with  drooping  wings, 

And  I  moaned,  "  We  have  come  in  a  world  of  hate 
Where  the  song-bird  songless  wings." 

And  she  :   "  Thou  hast  lived  in  the  fierce  hot  light 
Till  thy  mind  is  gray  with  remembered  things, 

But  between  the  stars  the  air  is  bright 
With  a  song  no  singer  sings. 

"  I  have  waited ;  mine  eyes  are  liquid  for  thee, 

For  thou  who  wert  lost  in  the  elder  years ; 
I  have  come,  and  thy  passions  throbbing  sea 

Is  salt  with  tears. 

77 


TO   PSYCHE 

"  Too  long  have  we  dwelt  apart,  alone, 

I  in  the  shadow,  thou  in  the  sun ; 
Oh,  bare  thy  breast  that  I  build  my  throne, 

For  the  storm  is  run. 

"  Through  the  violet  lustre  of  my  hair 
Let  a  sleep  steal  over  my  golden  eyes 

And  I  shall  forget  the  tireless  air 
And  the  cruel  skies. 

"  Sleep,  sleep,  and  never  to  wake  again, 
But  ever  to  lapse  from  dream  to  dream 

And  taste  the  joy  that  is  near  to  pain, 
Where  the  worlds  not  are  but  seem. 

"  I  am  thy  soul,  God's  child  am  I, 

And  the  day  when  thy  mighty  mind  turns  small 
In  the  simple  nearness  of  the  sky, 

I  shall  wake  and  hear  thee  call. 

78 


TO   PSYCHE 

"  Mine  eyes  shall  unfold  in  a  world  of  morn, 
Through  the  gates  of  night  by  music  blown 

We  shall  watch  dissolve  the  world's  great  scorn- 
On  the  breast  of  God,  alone." 


THE  WILL 

"  Was  jeder  im  innersten  WILL,  das  muss  er  sein  und  was  jeder 
ist,  das  WILL  er  eben." — SCHOPENHAUER. 

It  sprang  from  the  brows  of  a  star 

And  it  lives  with  the  life  of  the  world, 

It  appeared  like  the  lightning  of  God 
Through  the  dust  of  Eternity  hurled. 

And  much  as  a  luminous  thought 

May  shine  through  the  dusk  of  a  dream, 

It  awoke  in  the  childhood  of  light 

And  crimsoned  the  twilight  with  gleam. 

It  arose  in  the  first  blade  of  grass 

That  brake  the  stone  mountains  apart, 
And  it  budded  and  blossomed  and  bloomed 

Till  it  stirred  in  the  human  heart. 
So 


THE  WILL 

And  the  centuries  freighted  with  life 
Have  trembled  at  touch  of  its  flame, 

And  lips  where  its  lyric  was  warm 
Have  laboured  to  give  it  a  name. 

It  inspires  the  voices  of  birds, 
The  daedalian  tremor  of  earth, 

When  the  passion  of  increate  spring 
Moves  the  heart  to  ineffable  mirth. 

It  suspires  in  scent  from  the  rose 
And  in  midsummer's  satiate  rest ; 

It  is  rich  through  the  veins  of  the  world, 
Like  milk  in  a  woman's  deep  breast. 

It  burdens  thy  murmurous  lips 

When  love  in  thy  spirit  is  warm — 
My  lover  the  sea,  it  is  thou 

As  it  thrones  in  thy  splendour  of  storm. 
Si 


THE  WILL 

'Tis  the  pride  of  the  arm  and  the  loin 
That  thrives  in  the  sinews  of  war, 

And  puts  forth  in  the  whiteness  of  death 
Like  life  in  the  dawn  of  a  star. 

And  though  life  is  grown  tired  and  old, 
And  the  treasures  of  heart  and  of  soul 

Are  sold  for  a  handful  of  coin, 
It  stirs  with  a  vital  control 

In  man  and  in  woman  and  earth, 

As  on  Sappho's  lips  haunted  with  flame, 

Or  as  under  the  hand  of  the  Christ 
It  burned — it  is  ever  the  same. 

And  while  ever  the  sunrise  returns 
It  shall  still  be  .the  power  that  can 

Make  the  heart  to  grow  pallid  with  love 
Or  a  man  die  the  death  of  a  man. 


82 


TUCKANUCK 


I  AM  content  to  live  the  patient  day : 

The  wind  sea-laden  loiters  to  the  land 
And  on  the  glittering  gold  of  naked  sand 
The  eternity  of  blue  sea  pales  to  spray. 

In  such  a  world  we  have  no  need  to  pray ; 
The  holy  voices  of  the  sea  and  air 
Are  sacramental,  like  a  mighty  prayer 
In  which  the  earth  has  dreamed  its  tears  away. 

We  row  across  the  waters'  fluent  gold 

And  age  seems  blessed,  for  the  world  is  old. 
Softly  we  take  from  Nature's  open  palm 

The  dower  of  the  sunset  and  the  sky, 

And  dream  an  Eastern  dream,  starred  by  the  cry 

Of  sea-birds  homing  through  the  mighty  calm. 
83 


TUCKANUCK 


II 

Thou  art  the  dwelling  of  unshadowed  sun 

That  spills  its  metal  on  the  furrowed  tide 
And  vivid  grasses  when  the  winds  have  died 
In  threads  of  murmur  round  the  noontide  spun. 

The  cerements  of  flesh  are  like  a  rose 

Caressed  with  light,  whose  petals,  one  by  one 
Unfolding,  loose  the  soul  to  die  upon 
The  ocean  of  the  air  that  ebbs  and  flows. 

Perchance  the  truth  is  nearer  than  we  deem, 
That  after  grievous  pilgrimage  and  dearth 
The  soul  shall  wake  and  find  it  close  beside ; 

And  see,  as  visioned  in  a  perfect  dream, 
The  pitiful  grave  spirit  of  the  earth, 
A  patient  presence  sitting  at  God's  side. 


84 


TUCKANUCK 


III 

I  know  it  never  shall  come  again, 

This  present  peace  of  the  great  grave  sea 

And  the  land  that  laughs  in  its  sheen  of  rain, 
This  friendship  of  nature  to  you  and  me, 

While  Autumn  smiles  on  us,  big  and  sane. 

It  never  shall  come  though  /ar  love  abide, 
And  this  very  whisper  stirs  the  grass, 

While  clear  and  far  on  the  tortured  tide 
As  now,  the  sea-birds  cry  and  pass 

In  years  that  shall  come  when  our  day  has  died. 

It  never  shall  come — must  we  praise  or  blame 
If  every  day  moulds  the  world  anew  ? 

Better  perhaps,  but  never  the  same ; 

If  this  that  we  cherish  and  hold  for  true 

Shall  wither  and  fade  to  an  empty  name  ? 

85 


TUCKANUCK 

'Tis  the  woe  o'  the  world  !     As  the  moments  fly 
I  war  with  time  in  a  great  despair, 

While  the  first  shy  star  in  the  purple  sky 

Steals  through  the  dead  day's  golden  hair 

That  I  love  so  much  though  it  comes  to  die. 


86 


IV 
WIND  OF  TWILIGHT 

"  Cuando  besa  a  la  pradera 
La  brisa  que  entre  las  ramas 
Pasa  con  voz  lastimera." 

— M.  GARCIA  MEROU. 

GONE  the  red  reaches  of  repining  sea, 

Thou,  thro'  forgotten  twilights,  and  thy  pain, 
Wind  of  immortal  longing,  fresh  as  rain, 
Wonderful,  fresh  and  faint,  O  mystery! 

Give  me  again  the  languorous  touch  of  thee 

Lost  in  the  purple  shadows,  while  the  main, 
Intervalled,  lifts  its  choral,  and  again 
Sorrow  divine  and  calm  thro'  thee  to  me. 

Give  me  the  steady  silence  :  sea,  sky,  shore, 
Earth  and  her  simple  idylls ! — All  is  gone  ! 
All  shall  return,  but  be  the  same  no  more. 

Give  me,  O  wonder  !  still  thy  dim  dark  kiss, 
Cool  on  my  temples,  while  I  bide  alone 
And  cling  to  youth  and  linger  pale  for  this. 

87 


PASTORAL 

SLOPES  of  the  sun  and  vine,  and  thou  dark  stream, 

Thou  minstrel  of  the  forest-gloom,  whose  roll 
Is  like  the  passing  of  a  natural  dream 

Through  depths  of  patient  sleep 

To  lend  endurance  to  the  taxed  soul. 

The  cruel  life  beneath  the  cruel  noon, 
Where  men  are  quenched  like  dewdrops  in  the  sun, 

Where  haggard  women  reach  to  God  and  weep, 
Never  corrodes  thy  silent  solitude  ; 
But  where  thy  sheer,  green  shadows  shoreward  creep 

Through  the  slow  afternoon, 
The  battle  lost,  the  poem  half-begun, 
Are  chaplets  that  the  hymning  dawn -stars  keep 

To  grace  the  splendid  hope  our  youth  imbued. 

88 


PASTORAL 

The  twilight  flowers  close 

And  down  the  shadow  falls  a  timid  star; 
Afar 

The  sigh  and  silence  of  a  changing  wind, 
The  perfume  of  a  dying  rose — 

Beyond  the  senses  and  beyond  the  mind 
Dimly  we  hear  a  graver  music  grow, — 
Peace !  Peace  !  the  world  is  tuneful  of  her  woes 
With  man's  despair  the  richer  chord  impearled 

Is  infinite  of  grief;  we  in  the  world 

Hear  scattered  discord,  nor  the  broad  full  flow 

Of  song  until,  waxed  greater  than  the  whole, 
Wide,  from  their  slumber's  mystery,  unclose 

The  vision-laden  eyelids  of  the  soul. 


89 


FALL 

NAY,  be  content — our  door  that  opens  wide 
On  whitened  fields  this  autumn  dawn,  all  furred 
With  silver  imagery,  the  sudden  bird 

That  soothes  the  crystal  air,  the  windless  tide 

Of  light  across  the  world  from  roof  to  floor — 
Thy  heart  can  ask  no  more. 

The  fringed  horizon  of  the  pines 
Is  delicate  with  frore, 

And  holds  our  world  within  its  shadow  shore, 

Our  world  where  beauty  fresh  with  dewy  wines 
Sits  naked  at  our  door. 

Thine  eyes  in  mine  !  The  vineyard's  dusky  bloom, 
The  garnered  grain,  are  gifts  of  autumn's  mirth ; 

And  now,  while  softly  through  the  forest  gloom 

The  warm  awakening  of  the  good  wet  earth 
90 


FALL 

Suspires  through  the  dawn,  we  need  not  fear 

The  ceaseless  pageantry  of  death  and  birth, 
The  swallow's  passing  with  the  changing  year. 

Our  souls  could  say,  "  Perfection  was  and  is; 

Death  comes  like  slumber," — if  to-morrow's  sun 
Should  find  us  fallen  with  the  summer's  rose. 
This  moment  stolen  from  the  centuries, 
This  foretaste  of  the  soul's  oblivion 
We  hold  and  cherish,  and  because  of  this 
Are  life  and  death  made  perfect,  and  thy  woes 
Turn  lyric  through  the  glory  we  have  won. 
The  morning  flower  that  drew  its  petals  close 
And  slept  the  cold  night  through  is  now  unfurled 
To  catch  the  breathless  moment ;  big  and  sane 
Our  autumn  day  forsakes  the  gates  of  rose, 
And  like  a  lion  shakes  its  golden  mane 

And  leaps  upon  the  world. 


SONNETS 


TO  SILENCE 

LORD  of  the  deserts  'twixt  a  million  spheres, 
Child  of  the  moon-dawn  and  the  naked  moon, 
Close  comrade  of  the  whispered  afternoon, 
Angel  of  mercy,  whose  absolving  tears 

Erase  the  discord  of  our  human  fears  : 

Thy  lap  is  freighted  with  the  dawn,  thy  heart 
Is  warm  about  the  sunset,  for  thou  art 
The  woof  and  fabric  of  eternal  years. 

Thy  hand  is  soft  upon  the  troubled  eyes, 
And,  in  the  palace  of  thy  sister  Sleep, 
Thy  peace  remains  when  Life's  last  echo  dies. 

Thou  art  more  tender  than  the  raptured  breath 
That  rounds  a  virgin's  breast,  and  thou  dost  keep 
Thy  kiss  to  lay  upon  the  brows  of  Death. 


95 


II 

TO  THE  EARTH 

THE  heart  can  understand,  oh,  Mother  Earth  ! 
Thy  tides  and  winds  and  seasons  whisper,  "  Fate 
Has  held  us  dumb  through  centuries  of  hate, 
And  tears,  and  blood  for  things  of  little  worth." 

The  heart  can  understand,  since  Lilith's  mirth 
Shivered  the  early  echoes,  half  in  scorn, 
The  world-wide  leap  of  light  from  every  dawn, 
Day's  dying  pomp  around  thy  blood-drenched  girth. 

Across  thy  theatre  pageants  come  and  pass  : 
The  power  and  pride  of  man,  a  scenic  thing, 
Frames  forth  his  glory  in  enduring  brass  ; 

And  through  his  dust  I  hear  the  whispering 
Of  lifted  waters,  and  a  blade  of  grass 
Breaking  the  murmur-laden  breast  of  Spring. 


96 


Ill 

ESSEX 

i 
t 

THY  hills  are  kneeling  in  the  tardy  spring, 

And  wait,  in  supplication's  gentleness, 
The  certain  resurrection  that  shall  bring 

A  robe  of  verdure  for  their  nakedness. 
Thy  perfumed  valleys  where  the  twilights  dwell, 

Thy  fields  within  the  sunlight's  living  coil, 
Now  promise,  while  the  veins  of  nature  swell, 

Eternal  recompense  to  human  toil. 
And  when  the  sunset's  final  shades  depart 

The  aspiration  to  completed  birth 
Is  sweet  and  silent ;  as  the  soft  tears  start, 

We  know  how  wanton  and  how  little  worth 
Are  all  the  passions  of  our  bleeding  heart 

That  vex  the  awful  patience  of  the  earth. 


97 


V 

ESSEX 
ii 

THINE  are  the  large  winds  and  the  splendid  sun 
Glutting  the  spread  of  heaven  to  the  floor 
Of  waters  rhythmic  from  far  shore  to  shore, 
And  thine  the  stars,  revealing  one  by  one. 

Thine  the  grave,  lucent  night's  oblivion, 

The  tawny  moon  that  waits  below  the  skies, — 
Strange  as  the  dawn  that  smote  their  blistered  eyes 
Who  watched  from  Calvary  when  the  Deed  was  done. 

And  thine  the  good  brown  earth  that  bares  its  breast 
To  thy  benign  October,  thine  the  trees 
Lusty  with  fruitage  in  the  late  year's  rest ; 

And  thine  the  men  whose  blood  has  glorified 
Thy  name  with  Liberty's  divine  decrees — 
The  men  who  loved  thy  soil  and  fought  and  died. 


TOWARD  thine  Eastern  window  when  the  morn 
Steals  through  the  silver  mesh  of  silent  stars, 
I  come  unlaurelled  from  the  strenuous  wars 
Where  men  have  fought  and  wept  and  died  forlorn. 

But  here,  across  these  early  fields  of  corn, 
The  living  silence  dwelleth,  and  the  gray 
Sweet  earth-mist,  while  afar  the  lisp  of  spray 
Breathes  from  the  ocean  like  a  Triton's  horn. 

Open  thy  lattice,  for  the  gage  is  won 

For  which  this  earth  has  journeyed  through  the  dust 
Of  shattered  systems,  cold  about  the  sun  ; 

And  proved  by  sin,  by  mighty  lives  impearled, 

A  voice  cries  through  the  sunrise :   "  Time  is  just!  "- 
And  falls  like  dew  God's  pity  on  the  world. 


99 


VI 
FOG  AT  SEA 

GRAY  grisly  tides  that  choke  the  master  sun 
Who  domes  the  caves  of  sullen  fog  with  pearl, 
While  round  and  still  the  sick  white  eddies  swirl 
Between  the  smothered  vistas  one  by  one; 

Like  ghosts  the  frail  hysteric  breezes  run 
Aslant  the  ashen  world,  and  strive  to  furl 
The  slow  drenched  air  in  one  enormous  whirl 
And  free  the  ocean's  breast  it  weighs  upon. 

The  world  is  dying  for  a  draught  of  air, 

Great  autumn  air  that  like  a  hoarded  stream 
Floods  the  gigantic  openness  of  dawn ; 

And,  like  the  whispering  of  hopeless  prayer, 

The  white  world's  voices,  as  if  drowsed  with  dream, 
Sigh  through  the  muffled  stillness  and  are  gone. 


100 


VII 

NIRVANA 

i 

AND  shall  we  find  thee  ?  Shall  the  tired  soul 
Toiling  in  gross  dull  clay,  doomed  to  abide 
In  blurred  oblivion,  condemned  to  hide 
Its  eager  wings  impatient  of  control, 

And  God-lit  eyes  that  yearn  to  view  the  whole 
Of  that  divinest  splendour  glorified 
In  earth's  rare  visions — shall  it  feel  the  tide 
Of  thy  calm  love  in  endless  pity  roll  ? 

Oh,  let  the  inward  vision  drink  the  light 

Of  thine  effulgent  countenance  !     Then  might 
This  immaterial  dream  of  Thee  and  Me 

Dissolve  away  like  moon-mists  in  the  morn, 
And  we  could  lapse  in  silence  from  the  scorn 
Of  Destiny  to  thy  great  unity. 


zoi 


VIII 

NIRVANA 
ii 

WOOF  of  the  scenic  sense,  large  monotone 

Where  life's  diverse  inceptions,  death  and  birth, 
Where  all  the  gaudy  overflow  of  earth, 
Merge — they  the  manifold  and  thou  the  One. 

Increate,  complete — when  the  stars  are  gone 
In  cinders  down  the  void,  when  yesterday 
No  longer  spurs  desire  starvation-gray, 
When  God  grows  mortal  in  men's  hearts  of  stone,- 

As  each  pulsation  of  the  Heart  Divine 
Peoples  the  chaos,  or  with  falling  breath 
Beggars  creation,  still  the  soul  is  thine  ! 

And  still  untortured  by  the  world's  increase, 
Thy  wide,  harmonic  silences  of  death ; 
And  last — thy  white  uncovered  breast  of  peace. 


102 


IX 
PASSING  DAYS 

THEY  walk  across  my  life  with  great,  grave  eyes 
That  greet  my  questioning  hands  with  silent  scorn 
And  blossoms  break  upon  their  crowns  of  thorn, 
While  garlands  wither  that  their  children  prize. 

I  kiss  their  lips  and  grow  a  little  wise, 

A  little  patient,  while  my  strength  is  worn 
Beneath  the  spur  of  each  succeeding  morn 
That  dowers  its  evening  with  a  fresh  surmise. 

Their  message  dies  with  them,  an  empty  word ; 
But  memory  garners,  in  a  wild  regret, 
Their  silent  beauty  that  the  heart  preferred. 

And  in  the  fire  of  hopeless  love  they  seem 
So  real  with  sorrow,  that  I  half  forget 
My  soul  shall  wake  and  find  the  days  a  dream. 


103 


X 

ON   AN   /EOLIAN  HARP 

LURE  of  the  night's  dsedalian  sea-born  breath, 
Wild  as  the  heart's  uncomprehended  dole, 
Strange  as  the  grieving  of  a  mighty  soul 
Touched  with  the  lyric  woe  of  life  and  death. 

Phraser  of  world-wide  monotones  that  toll 
Like  far  enormous  bells  from  sky  to  sky, 
Voice  of  the  vaster  solitudes  that  lie 
With  life's  solution  past  the  mind's  control. 

The  golden  eyes  of  long-forgotten  days, 
The  dolorous  memory  of  simple  things, 
Sadden  thy  lapsing  chords  : — the  present  pays 

The  past's  arrears  of  sorrow,  and  they  seem 
To  wake  a  sense,  among  thy  weeping  strings, 
Of  other  lives,  like  some  unceasing  dream. 


104 


XI 

I 

THE  SPHINX 

OBLIVION  like  perfume  from  the  wings 
Of  dim  Osiris,  and  the  calm  of  one 
High  soul,  who  thy  remorseless  lips  of  stone 
Chiselled  to  mock  the  resonance  of  kings. 

Thy  proper  silence,  ripe  with  legend,  clings 
To  thine  inert  omnipotence,  endures 
Though  Gods  and  empires  agonize,  and  lures 
Strange  lapses  from  life's  echoing,  brazen  strings. 

Thou  seest  new  stars  swing  downward  through  the  gloom, 
While  on  her  dust,  who  smiled  and  ravished  Rome, 
Decays  the  graven  marble  of  her  tomb. 

The  fruitful  Nile,  the  desert  in  thine  eyes — 

Dead  laughter,  and  dead  tears — How  much  to  come  ? — 
Death,  death,  and  fragile  life  that  weeps  and  dies. 


105 


XII 

WHILES  were,  I  almost  seemed  to  understand  ; 
I  watched  the  flooding  waters  with  their  fleece 
Of  sudden  foam,  and  felt  the  ripening  peace 
And  joy  of  increase  that  the  earth  had  planned. 

Then  the  great  shadow  fell  across  the  land, 
And  in  the  harsh  monotony  of  wind 
I  felt  the  past  like  Death  about  my  mind, 
And  mild  with  grief  put  forth  mine  idle  hand. 

There  was  the  question  :  each  day  should  I  be 
What  yesterday  I  was  not,  and  for  me 
Of  my  dead  self  but  memory  remain  ? 

And  when  upon  my  nakedness  the  snow 

Had  spread  its  silence,  should  I  wake  and  know, 
Or  sleeping,  dream  another  life  as  vain  ? 


106 


XIII 
TO  THE  MEMORY  OF  W.   H.   P. 

LIFE  may  not  perish  though  the  winds  of  death 
Whine  shrilly  through  the  world,  where  we  alone 
Crouch  in  the  trodden  dust,  and  feel  the  moan 
Of  ancient  sorrow  burthening  our  breath. 

The  blade  endureth,  though  it  break  the  sheath ; 
Life  springs  and  ceases  in  oblivion, 
Gathered  and  scattered  by  the  master  sun 
Like  rain  upon  the  waters  calm  beneath. 

We  wait  like  corpses  in  a  charnel-house, 
And  singly,  as  the  shrouded  years  return, 
They  loose  the  cere-cloth  on  our  furrowed  brows ; 

And  one  departs  in  splendour  through  the  tomb, 
We  hear  the  voice  of  Cherubim,  and  turn 
Weeping  like  children  in  the  intenser  gloom. 


107 


XIV 
INSOMNIA 

To  wake  upon  the  shrouded  budding  sky 
And  sudden  silence — wake  and  lie  alone 
In  the  gigantic  solitude,  and  groan 
To  feel  the  sting  of  light  upon  the  eye. 

To  wake  and  wait  until  the  senses  cry — 
Knowing  the  sun  shall  smite  upon  the  sea, 
And  rouse  the  tragic  day  that  is  to  be, 
Grief-haunted  by  the  days  that  have  gone  by. 

To  wake,  and  wait,  and  lie  alone,  and  know 
That  through  the  mist  of  grim  familiar  pain 
The  world  is  perfect  music  even  now ; 

To  strive  and  catch  the  master-hand  that  pearled 
The  night  with  song,  and  feel,  across  the  rain, 
A  sadness  as  the  sadness  of  the  world. 


108 


XV 

I  STOOD  upon  the  old  Earth's  breast  and  gazed 
To  where  the  seaward  sand  was  gray  with  brine, 
And  heard  a  song-bird  weeping  in  a  pine, 
Beneath  the  iron  heaven,  bent  and  crazed. 

The  sea  was  like  an  eye  that  death  had  glazed ; 
Amid  gray  light  blown  round  the  ragged  marge 
The  fallen  sun  hung  lustreless  and  large 
And  one  thin  trace  of  lifeless  waters  blazed. 

I  strove  to  feel  God's  pity  for  His  men, 
As,  in  the  Galilean  dawn,  the  love 
Of  Jesu  widened  on  the  human  ken  : — 

In  vain  !  I  watched  my  fated  evening  go 

Heart-broken  beyond  tears  and  round  me  move 
The  strength  and  sorrow  of  the  life  I  know. 


109 


XVI 

OUR  lips  are  laughing  while  our  eyes  are  wet ; 
The  happiness  we  hope,  the  grief  we  fear, 
The  stress  and  anguish  that  our  moments  bear, 
Are  trivial  shadows  that  our  lives  forget. 

The  day's  despairing  toil  and  passion's  fret 
Evanish  utterly  like  empty  words; 
What  was  has  never  been ;  the  past  affords 
Only  a  heritage  of  divine  regret. 

But  whiles  the  sorrow  of  a  sleeping  face 
Awakes  a  deeper  pity  not  our  own, 
Or  when  the  soul  in  Beauty's  large  embrace 

Forsakes  its  margined  slumber,  we  may  grow 
To  greater  moments,  when  we  stand  alone 
And  feel  that  life  is  sadder  than  we  know. 


no 


XVII 
THE  GATE  OF  DREAMS 

THE  Gate  of  Dreams,  where,  time  and  time  again, 
Through  sleep  transfigured  with  a  nameless  light, 
Fearful,  upon  the  tired  end  of  night, 
I  come  as  might  a  devote  to  his  fane. 

The  Gate  of  Dreams,  of  melancholy  pain, 
Flooding  the  drowsy  labyrinthine  soul 
With  faces  of  despair  or  patient  dole — 
The  tragic  children  of  a  weary  brain. 

The  Gate  of  Dreams,  where  throbs  a  ghostly  wail, 
As  it  were  of  sobbing  strings  and  wild  accords, 
Where  life  is  scenic  in  the  smile  of  fate ; 

Where  faces,  shrouded  in  an  iron  veil, 

Pass  outward  in  a  woe  too  great  for  words, 
Or  weep  in  haggard  terror,  weep  and  wait. 


in 


XVIII 
TO  GIACOMO  LEOPARDI 

DESPAIR  is  musical,  the  wings  of  pain 

Are  stirred  in  rhythm  of  large  winds  that  bear 

A  mute  divinity  of  human  prayer 

And  human  sorrow  that  the  prayer  is  vain. 

The  tears  of  speech  that  wet  thy  lips  profane 
No  Muse  with  discord,  for  the  world's  control 
Had  never  blurred  the  windows  of  thy  soul 
Nor  bound  the  beating  of  thy  heart  with  chain. 

But  we  have  piled  the  gates  of  sun  with  dust, 
And  in  the  jangling  darkness  of  the  earth, 
With  muffled  hearts,  exist  because  we  must. 

Our  times  are  blasphemous  :   no  tears,  no  shame, 
But  heaven  insulted  with  an  evil  mirth 
And  greed  exalted  with  a  sacred  name. 


112 


XIX 
To  J.  T.  S. 

After  reading  "Amis  et  Amile." 

AND  were  they  friends  as  thou  and  I  are  friends 
That  take  the  wind  of  sorrow  open-eyed, 
And,  striving  sunward  though  the  storms  divide, 
Stand,  speak  and  break  amid  the  press  that  bends? 

We  ache  to  life  and  bear  the  dower  it  sends 
Of  Godless  temples  and  of  rusted  sword, 
With  ashes  of  the  heart  the  heavens  scored, 
Arched  o'er  a  world  unholy  in  its  ends. 

Was  their  love  more  than  ours,  being  impearled 
With  sacrifice  of  blood  and  wife  and  child? 
Ah  !  they,  who  walked  the  sunshine  of  the  world 

And  heard  grave  angels  speaking  through  a  dream, 
Had  never  their  unlaurelled  brows  defiled, 
Nor  strove  to  stem  the  world's  enormous  stream. 


XX 

TO  THE   CHILDREN   OF  THE   MUSE 

"Nel  secol  tetro  e  in  questo  aer  nefando." 

— L 

NONE  shall  put  forth  a  hand  and  twist  the  brass 
That  galls  the  neck  of  Liberty,  none  dare 
Avert  the  iron  stigma  of  despair 
And  show  our  eyes  how  good  the  battle  was. 

Yet  now  for  you  who,  'mid  the  blowing  grass 
That  hides  the  grave  of  honour,  sit  and  stare 
In  the  great  muteness  of  forgotten  prayer — 
The  vengeance  of  the  Lord  has  come  to  pass  ! 

They  fester  in  their  cities  who  have  scarred 
The  face  of  earth  until  her  skeleton 
Is  naked,  and  her  breasts  are  dry  and  hard  ; 

Say,  shall  ye  tear  the  world's  dishevelled  robe 
And  lay  her  ulcers  open  to  the  sun, 
Or  murmur  soft,  "  Thy  will  be  done  I  "  like  Job  ? 


114 


XXI 

L'ENFANT  DU  SIECLE 

DIM  dying  child  be  still  and  taste  thy  pain, 

Poor  hands  be  mild,  for  no  new  God  appears, 
And  patient  on  thy  pinnacle  of  years, 
Dark  soul  forego  thy  Godlike  task  and  chain 

Thy  longings;  Faith  has  died  and  they  are  vain, 
And  thou  hast  lost  the  power  of  natural  tears, 
And  memories  that  thy  dateless  childhood  bears 
Have  blurred  thy  living  days  like  sterile  rain. 

The  soul's  sweet  choristers  that  once  did  toll 
Thro'  God's  immensity  are  fallen  dumb ; 
As  when  the  accorded  harps  and  martial  drum, 

Thro'  some  vast  palace  where  a  kingly  soul 

Has  passed  away,  are  hushed ;  and  thou  shall  come 
Thro*  life  a  mourner,  mute  and  pitiful. 


XXII 
AUX   MODERNES 

' '  Dispera 
L'ultima  volta." 

— LEOPARDI. 

I 

ONLY  an  empty  platitude  for  God, 
Only  for  poetry  a  jangling  nerve, 
Only  for  life  the  baser  lusts  to  serve, 
Only  a  fashion  where  the  function  stood. 

Only  a  shadow  stealing  span  on  span 

Over  the  unmeasured  whiteness  of  the  soul ; 
Darkness  around  the  God-established  goal 
That  blazed  before  the  innocence  of  man. 

And  when  the  flame  of  adolescence  breaks 

On  some  wild  heart  the  world  has  overthrown, 
He  stares  as  one  who  waits  alone  and  wakes, 

Cheated  of  love  and  faith,  his  vision  drawn 

Haggard  and  hopeless  from  his  death-bed  down 
The  hard,  gray,  tacit  distances  of  dawn. 

116 


XXIII 

AUX  MODERNES 
II 

WHEN  I  have  learned  the  accents  of  your  speech, 
The  splendid  grief  of  silence ;   when  I  know 
Your  acrid  laughter  and  your  tearless  woe, 
And  learn  the  shame  of  life — what  you  can  teach ; 

When  dust  returns  to  dust,  and  mutely  each 

Grows  haggard  thro'  the  fard — then  I  shall  say, 
"  Your  foolish  lips  have  lied  from  day  to  day, 
And  life  has  reached  the  goal  that  life  must  reach." 

And  then  a  hush — and  then  a  mighty  thought 
Shall  move  upon  the  fabric  of  your  lives 
As  thro'  a  tavern  window  looms  the  dawn ; 

And  in  your  tarnished  tinsel,  in  the  scorn 

Of  guttered  candles,  all  your  lives  have  sought 
And  you  shall  fade  and  finish — Truth  survives  ! 


117 


XXIV 

OF  this  that  I  have  written  none  is  mine, 
Save  only  as  my  clouded  sense  has  heard 
And  blurred  with  ineffectual  rhyme  the  Word 
Whose  virgin  silence  was  and  is  divine. 

The  veins  of  God  are  filled  with  golden  wine 

Perturbed  with  splendour,  and  this  world  we  dream 
Around  our  tinsel  lives  endows  a  theme 
Of  music — Hearken  !  for  its  voice  is  thine  ! 

The  Youth  and  Beauty  of  the  earlier  earth 
Have  never  died,  but  on  the  breast  of  song 
They  lie  like  flowers — 'tis  we  that  agonize  ! 

And  in  the  gray  senescence  of  our  birth 

Erase  the  soul  whose  voice  condemns  the  wrong, 
And  move  our  fingers  through  the  dust  we  prize. 


118 


XXV 
TO  A  STATUE 

DEEP  Soul  that  may  not  hold  the  brazen  mould, 
Spirit  whose  silence  bideth  to  the  moon, 
Thou  Goddess  of  the  closing  afternoon, 
Who  gazeth  where  the  tidal  air  is  cold — 

Thine  eyes  have  watched  beyond  the  stars  grown  gold, 
That  polar  silence  where  the  shrouded  spheres 
Stir  slightly  through  the  mist  of  little  years, 
For  thou  wert  never  born,  nor  young,  nor  old. 

Goddess  without  a  shrine  to  bear  the  prayer 
Of  thy  few  faithful,  whose  despair  has  won 
A  mourning  fillet  for  thy  solemn  hair: 

The  soul  shall  hear  thee  sigh  beyond  the  cry 
Of  Time,  and  fallen  headlong  from  the  sun, 
Shall  find  thy  pity  in  the  vaster  sky. 


119 


XXVI 
A  DREAM 

I  DREAMED  the  world  of  noon  was  stricken  blind : 
A  sun,  so  haggard  that  it  starved  the  air, 
Scarcely  sufficed  to  light  the  stark  despair 
Of  tearless  millions  shrieking  to  the  wind. 

Then,  leering  on  the  world,  a  hellish  mind 
Drawn  in  a  hearse,  raved  silently  of  pain ; 
The  voices  died  and  silence  laid  the  strain 
Of  unforgotten  anguish  on  mankind. 

Upon  their  bones  the  flesh  of  men  grew  gray, 
All  nature  withered  in  a  wild  regret, 
And  maddened  whispers  scared  the  ashy  sun : 
"  No  more"  they  moaned  "men's  hearts,  like  drops  of  spray, 
Shall  touch  their  ocean,  mingle  and  forget — 
This  is  the  burial  of  oblivion  ! ' ' 


120 


XXVII 
"ELI!   ELI!   LAMA   SABACTHANI!" 

THE  glare  of  Hell  it  was,  the  haggard  light, 
And  tragic  to  His  ears,  from  Galilee, 
Like  wailing  children  sobbed  His  native  sea : 
Then  on  the  cruel  nails  He  strained  upright 

With  sinews  drawn  as  steel,  and  cast  His  sight 
Over  the  blackness,  but  He  might  not  see — 
Even  He  the  Christ.     He  plucked  against  the  tree 
With  piteous  hands,  and  called  across  the  night 

Thrice  upon  God  the  Father — none  replied  ! 
The  Heavens  were  void ;  ecstatic  voices  cried, 
"  Despair  !  Despair  !  in  death  ye  may  not  die  !  " 

He  heard  :  the  great  sweat  beaded  on  His  face, 
The  vital  sob  urged  ontward,  and  a  space 
Rose  through  dissolving  faith  the  Eternal  Lie ! 


131 


XXVIII 
DANTE 

THY  voice — all  its  least  tones,  the  strain  and  stir 
Measured  and  ardent,  and  the  mighty  trend 
Outward  upon  a  light-pervaded  end, 
Gained  through  the  fields  of  flame  and  hideous  blur. 

Thou  art  sonorous  as  the  shuddering  fir 

Thwarting  the  tempest,  nor  thy  metres  bend 
Under  their  splendid  freight,  when  thou  dost  blend 
Power  and  light  and  love  to  speak  of  Her. 

Inward  thy  flame  arose  and  strong  with  strife 
Shone  in  thy  words — thou  art  to  me  as  life, 
Beaten,  renewed  with  hope,  and  undestroyed. 

Thy  voice  comes  pure  to  me  as  waters  falling, 
Swells  till  it  seems  I  hear  the  Seraph  calling 
Through  open  spaces  of  the  dayless  void. 


XXIX 
LOVE 

I 

SADDER  and  more  divine  than  human  tears 
Born  on  the  eyes  to  utter  what  is  dumb, 
This  simple  silence  when  the  heart  grows  numb 
Among  the  dead  desires  of  perished  years. 

Such  silence  quivers  with  the  song  it  bears, 
Unsung  within  a  fabric  of  old  pain, 
Till  in  the  dust  of  tired  passions,  plain 
Through  wreaths  of  light,  the  naked  truth  appears. 

Then  poised  upon  the  moment  thou  canst  lay 
Thy  brow  upon  the  Heart  of  Hearts,  and  feel 
The  tide  that  ebbs  and  waxes  through  us  all ; 

Till  from  the  silence,  through  the  world's  decay, 
A  voice  shall  speak  to  thee  like  beaten  steel, 
Lest  on  thy  sea  of  sun  the  shadows  fall. 


123 


XXX 

II 

IT  flows  thro'  all  of  time  from  heart  to  heart, 
This  solemn  wonder  fresh  with  naked  strength, 
This  source  of  life  where  every  mouth  at  length 
Must  drink  and  feel  the  old  impulsions  start. 

It  is  the  whole  that  moves  through  every  part, 
The  aspiration  dim  of  things  unborn, 
The  prophecy  of  life's  essential  dawn, 
That  tears  the  everlasting  night  apart. 

And  we  who  are,  and  were  the  splendid  spur 
For  wasted  generations,  we  must  bear 
For  human  sake  the  same  gigantic  stir 

Of  breathless  longing,  and  the  great  command 
Of  life  to  life,  and  leave  our  spirits  bare 
To  feel  the  truth  they  cannot  understand. 


124 


XXXI 

I  DREAMED  of  Thee,  O  Wonder,  with  the  sheen 
Amid  thy  temples  of  a  sanguine  gem, 
And  warm,  between  thy  garment's  purple  hem, 
The  languid  passions  of  that  Persian  Queen 

Who  sate  with  she-slaves  in  her  quiet  gloom, 
And  felt  the  sob  of  fountains  and  the  keen 
Perfume  of  lotus,  and  the  murmurous  lean 
Of  windy  flowers,  and  life's  impending  doom. 

O  dream  of  dazzled  senses  and  the  pain 
Of  conscious  happiness  !     I  woke  beneath 
The  dark  maturing  dawn,  while  earth  again 

Renewed  its  patient  toil  for  human  sake, 

And  felt  the  tender  calm  of  such  a  death 

/ 

As  thine,  O  Wonder,  dream  whose  death  it  was  to 
wake. 


125 


XXXII 

SHE  came  once  only  in  a  dream  of  death 

And  touched  my  face  with  wise,  unhurried  hand, 
And  "  Man,"  her  silence  said,  "I  understand — 
The  end  is  now,  and  quiet  now,  and  faith.' 

And  lotos-like  and  moved  with  tender  breath, 
Her  breast  was  calm  as  night  and  pale  and  bare, 
And,  watching  thro'  the  gloom  of  burnished  hair, 
Her  solemn  eyes  were  deep,  and  tears  beneath. 

And  tears  were  on  the  lips  that  kissed  her  mouth, 
And  only  tears  could  speak  to  her,  and  tears 
Fell  burning  on  her  breast — the  tears  of  youth. 

And  life,  and  evermore  its  weariness 

Was  dim  forgotten  pain,  the  iterate  years 
Were  ceased,  the  roar  of  time  was  echoless. 


126 


XXXIII 

THE  low  moon  quivers  on  the  hyacinth  sky, 
And  lays  upon  the  ocean's  glooming  frown 
Its  frail  caress  ;  like  silence  tenderly 
The  shadow  falls  immeasurably  down. 

A  smouldering  flame  perturbs  the  heaven's  girth, 
As  might,  in  some  great  moment,  silently, 
A  sudden  vision  of  the  tragic  earth 
Blazon  the  brows  of  God  with  mystery. 

And  thou  shalt  come  as  the  great  shadow  falls, 
Like  the  slow  single  star,  and  lay  thy  last 
Ethereal  kiss  upon  my  tired  eyes ; 

And  I  shall  answer  thee  as  one  who  calls 

Through  the  dumb  places  of  the  haunted  past, 
Drinking  its  fulness  ere  the  moment  dies. 


127 


XXXIV 

TELL  me  again,  and  then  lift  up  to  me 

Those  frail  white  arms  of  thine  and  touch  my  face, 
And  wrap  me  wholly  in  thine  eyes'  embrace, 
Till  God's  sure  hand  run  fire  round  me  and  thee. 

Tell  me  again,  and  let  thy  speaking  be 
A  faint  phrased  echo,  delicate  as  lace, 
Of  seas  sonorous  through  the  void  of  space, 
The  low,  lost  rhythm  of  immensity. 

Tell  me  again,  and  where  thy  breasts  divide 
Pillow  my  weariness — the  breath  of  fall 
Shall  blow  crisp  crimson  leaves  upon  thy  hair ; 

Thy  presence  is  as  where  a  song  has  died, 
And  left  its  memory  grieving  over  all 
This  vital  solitude  of  autumn  air. 


128 


XXXV 

GIVE  me  thy  pitiful,  soft-moulded  hand, 
And  we  will  bide  in  silence,  Thou  and  I ; 
Within  the  choired  poem  of  the  sky 
Thine  is  the  voice  I  cannot  understand. 

Give  me  thy  hand  and  let  the  heart  command : 
My  mind  is  blurred,  and  yet  I  seem  to  know 
Darkly  what  men  have  spoken  of,  and  now 
The  Word  itself  their  lips  have  never  spanned, 

Nor  I  shall  ever  speak  it,  nor  shall  they 
That  illustrate  to-morrow  with  their  birth ; 
The  tongue  is  tethered — we  can  just  obey ; 

And  from  the  gates  of  sunrise  issue  dumb, 
Illumined — while  the  spirit  of  the  earth 
Reveals  her  secret,  knowing  we  have  come. 


129 


XXXVI 

IF  I  have  touched  thy  heart,  as  Solomon, 

When  seemed  the  world  dissolving  in  a  kiss, 

Upon  the  pages  wonder-white  with  prayer 

With  lyric  fingers  laid  his  rose  of  song  ; 

And  if  the  most  I  am  is  just — a  man, 

Why  yet,  Beloved,  in  that  I  am  thine, 

I  must  not  ask  forgiveness ;  this  I  write 

Is  all  and  more  than  I  can  say  I  am ; 

Like  veiled  music  through  the  threadbare  words 

Thy  heart  is  beating  even  now,  for  I 

Have  seen  the  morning  quicken  through  its  sleep 

In  cycles  of  dim  song.     Thou  canst  not  say 

What  I  have  given  is  deserving  scorn, 

For  I  have  naught  to  give  that  is  not  Thine. 


130 


XXXVII 

TOO  SOON 

His  wordless  voice  was  like  a  toiling  dream  ; 
I  waited,  stupid  in  my  wasted  hope, 
And  felt  the  winds,  beneath  the  heavens  cope, 
Stir  like  the  pulse  of  some  vast  gradual  stream. 

This  was  the  end.     I  heard  again  his  scream 
Of  perfect  fear,  and  felt  about  me  furled 
The  naked  hate  of  all  the  living  world  : — 
God's  eyes  looked  into  mine  nor  were  supreme  ! 

The  crawling  fear  had  thrust  his  jaws  apart 
And  fixed  his  lidless  eyes  against  the  wall, 
And  Death  held  back  the  tides  within  his  heart; 

I  cried  "  For  Pity,  tell  me  if  she  lied  !  " 
Then  came  the  hideous  simper,  and  a  small 
Mute  whisper  writhed  upon  his  lips  and  died. 


XXXVIII 
TOO   LATE 

WHILE  over  all  the  sullen  embers  gloat, 
Silence,  forgetfulness,  and  only  now 
The  twilight  of  your  hair  across  my  brow, 
And  soft  my  kiss  upon  your  marble  throat. 

Be  still — great  visions  through  the  quiet  float, 
And  while  the  wind  is  wailing  at  our  door, 
And  day  retires  in  gloom  across  the  moor, 
Time  shall  forget  an  hour  and  grow  remote 

And — Hush  !  The  fire  is  dull  between  your  hair: 
My  tear  upon  your  breast  your  curtained  eyes 
Have  answered — it  is  all  the  heart  can  bear! 

Peace  !  Peace  !  there's  pity  in  the  soul  of  pain, 
And  now  our  lives  fulfil  their  destinies — 
Hark  !  the  despairing  whisper  of  the  rain. 


132 


XXXIX 
THE  NIGHT-WIND 

ECHOLESS  voice  of  few  sufficing  chords, 
Soft  as  the  memory  of  a  vaster  rest, 
Secret  as  sorrow  held  within  the  breast 
Of  one  whose  silence  never  stoops  to  words. 

Harp  of  waste  waters  by  thy  hands  caressed, 
Chalice  of  music — prayer  and  song  and  strife — 
Filled  with  that  wine  that  drowns  the  ills  of  life 
When  the  last  vineyards  of  the  soul  are  pressed. 

Prophet  of  final  calm  where  life  shall  cease, 
Cease  and  a  kind  forgetfulness  of  soul 
Fall  like  a  balm  upon  the  wounds  of  peace — 

Thy  voice  shall  soothe  the  last  and  sternest  fight, 
Threading  the  dark  dim  solitudes  of  night, 
Like  life  without  a  prelude  or  a  goal. 


133 


XL 

AND  they  shall  say  to  thee,  ' '  He  died  distraught ; 
His  mind  was  crazed  by  dreaming  on  things  past, 
And  so  he  grew  in  madness  till  the  last 
Sheer  height  of  scorn  he  tottered  from  to  naught. 

His  hands  were  weak  and  idle  and  ne'er  caught 
With  strength  of  purpose  at  the  busy  world ; 
Forlorn  and  proud  he  stood — Time  onward  whirled 
And  left  the  ruins  of  the  things  he  sought." 

But  thou  shalt  understand  what  they  despise, 
Cherish  what  they  reject,  and  count  the  few 
Poor  virtues  dearer  than  the  things  they  prize. 

And.  weighing  all  the  evil  they  have  said, 

Thy  heart  shall  say,  "What,  then,  if  this  be  true? 
Be  Silent !  for  he  loved  me  and  is  dead." 


134 


A  LAST  WORD 

THINE  be  the  last  thought  and  the  best,  and  thine 

These  few,  poor,  fluttering  words,  and  thine  the  whole 
Of  life,  that  in  the  quiet  of  the  soul, 

Stirs  through  the  muteness  of  the  Heart  Divine. 

And  in  its  silence,  overwrought  with  song, 

Where,  through  the  curtained  chambers  of  the  mind, 
The  soul  of  thought,  in  solitude  enshrined. 

Unutterable  dwells,  and  pure  and  strong, 

i 
Thy  royal  heart  shall  cross  the  wide-eyed  dawn 

Alone,  and  find  the  unspoken  thing  I  am 
Waiting  for  none  but  thee  behind  the  sham 
Of  rhymed  words  where  the  poem's  self  is  born. 


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